Air India, the plane bound for London carrying 242 people, crashed shortly after take-off in western India on Thursday.
Flight 171, a Boeing 787-8, came down in the residential area of Meghani Nagar five minutes after taking off. Footage posted to social media showed the aircraft rapidly losing altitude before it hit a building and exploded into a ball of fire.
The airline said in a statement that the plane had 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, one Canadian, and seven Portuguese.
As the investigation continues, a number of aviation experts have shared their theories on what may have led to the devastating incident that has caused widespread panic once again and devastated hundreds of families.
Aviation security expert Julian Bray is making waves with his comments. He told The Daily Mail that the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner in question was a “state-of-the-art” aircraft.
He suggested that “evil intent” may have been involved rather than a technical failure that brought Air India down to the ground and into a ball of fire.
“It is very disappointing that it is a Dreamliner as it is a state-of-the-art Boeing.
“We cannot rule out security issues. But this is all speculation on my part.”
He added to Sky News: “This is very, very worrying as it happened on departure.
“The Dreamliner is Boeing’s ‘star product’, you might say, and it does have several backup systems and safety systems. We have to look at security issues and decide whether that is a factor here.
“What I am worried about is if an incident has happened while it was taking off, we have to look at the security side of things and work out where there was some evil intent behind this.”
It is too early to say on Thursday morning whether any issues at Boeing will be shown to be a factor in the crash.
The investigation into the cause could take months, if not over a year.
Air India Crash Was A First Involving Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner
The deadly Air India crash on Thursday was the first involving Boeing’s 787, which was a first of a kind in many ways.
Boeing calls the plane the best-selling large airliner ever.
Boeing says the aircraft has carried 1 billion passengers. More than 1,100 Dreamliners are in service with airlines around the world.
The crash of an Air India flight to London is the first fatal incident involving a Boeing 787.
Air India has 34 in its fleet.
People Spotted Something Unusual During Air India Flight 171 Take-Off
Social media was quick to notice something unusual with Air India flight 171 en route to London Gatwick during take-off.
“This image of #AI171 before the crash shows the flaps are set to 0° (given that the wings look completely flat), making “pilot error” one of the evident causes of the tragedy.” Alpha Sierra wrote.
“Wing flaps look up. They didn’t have the speed to fly. Not sure how this is possible on a 787. Warning systems would’ve alerted the pilots of their mistake of the flaps being up.” wrote Ron USFF
“I don’t see flaps extended. That hot of a day and a full fuel load they would need flaps. Just an observation.” Stang Merlin noticed.
Nothing has been confirmed to why Air India Flight 171 crashed, but our prayers go out to the families of the individuals who lost their lives. RIP!
