Ahmedabad crash: US expert says plane parts did not seem properly configured

WASHINGTON: US experts on Thursday said the plane involved in the crash at Ahmedabad did not seem “properly configured” and that the crash appeared “surprising” at first glance.

The Air India passenger plane bound for London with more than 240 people on board crashed in India's northwestern city of Ahmedabad. The aircraft was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, a widebody, twin-engine plane.

This is the first crash ever of the Dreamliner since it went into service in 2009, according to the Aviation Safety Network database.

Aviation safety consultant John M Cox said one of the questions investigators will be asking is whether the Air India plane that crashed Thursday was properly configured for flight.

While he stressed it was too early to make any conclusions, the CEO of Washington DC-based Safety Operating Systems said the grainy images of the flight suggested that one area of inquiry was likely to be whether the slats and flaps were in the correct position as the plane attempted to climb.

“The image shows the airplane with the nose rising and it continuing to sink,” he said. “That says that the airplane is not making enough lift.”'

The slats and flaps should be positioned so that the wing makes more lift at lower speeds.

“It's hard to tell but from looking at the aircraft from behind… it doesn't look like the trailing edge flaps are in the position I would have expected them to be,” he said. “But I'm very cautious that the image quality is not good enough to make that conclusion. It's just an area where I know that they're going to look.”

John McDermid, a computer science professor at the University of York with expertise in safety engineering, said that while it was too early to know much about the cause of the crash, it appeared to be very surprising at first glance.

While takeoffs and landings are the most dangerous phases of a flight, he noted that the plane had not climbed above 200 metres or 650 feet.

“Pilots can abort takeoff until quite late,” McDermid said. “So it seems like the problem occurred very suddenly in the final part of the takeoff roll, or shortly after takeoff, and was sufficiently serious to be unmanageable.”

He also said that jets have many backup systems, such as the ability to climb with only one engine, which also made it an unusual accident.

Air India said there were 169 Indians, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian on the flight bound for London Gatwick Airport. Part of the plane fell on top of a medical college in Ahmedabad, killing at least five medical students and injuring nearly 50, according to a medical association.