The crash of Air India Flight AI171 has killed at least 265 people – making it the worst commercial aviation tramp in more than a decade.
A Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner went off in a residential area shortly after he left the Ahmedabad Airport India’s. It was on the way to London Gatwick.
ABC News Verify has investigated video images and flight data to try to gain insight into what went wrong.
And a warning – this article shows and discusses graphic content.
Where is the plane crashing?
Ahmedabad is a city in the west of India, in the state of Gujarat. The airport is located in the northeast of the city.
The crash site can be found in the southwest of the Airport-Ongeveer 1.5 kilometers away with the end of the runway.
The plane collapsed near the airport shortly after taking off. ((ABC News Verifie: Devi Mallal))
Data from Flight Tracker, Flighttradar24, shows AI171 at around 13:38 Local time. Reuters reported that the local air traffic controller said the plane left a minute later at 13:39.
The flight was followed to 625 feet, or just over 190 meters, in the air before the signal fell.
At that time, the plane traveled a little more than 320 kilometers per hour.
Security camera images – verified by Associated Press – were recorded at a location on the east side of the airport and shows these events.
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The video shows the plane that rises for about 30 seconds and flies before it gets around. ABC News Verify has cut the video before a fireball appears in the air.
What could have happened?
Another video that is placed online shows the crash from a separate angle.
The 17-second clip shows the plane, with his nose up and loses height before he touches the ground, a large fire ball is created.
The Air India plane flew visibly with its landing gear before he crashed and exploded. ((Delivered))
Ron Bartsch is a leading expert in aviation safety and chairman of AVLAW – a respected international aviation consultancy company.
He said it looks like the flaps of the aircraft that help to help the lift when taking off and the landing does not seem to be in the right position and the landing gear is down.
“There are some deviations with the video I have seen,” he told ABC News Ferify.
“The fact that the plane still seems to be down with its equipment and flaps has been withdrawn on 600 feet after taking off is not the usual configuration for an airplane.
“The aircraft would have been very close to the maximum starting weight, the environmental conditions were around 40 degrees Celsius-Dus, they are not conditions for aircraft performance.
“The plane can climb down with its equipment, but at such a low speed the extra lift should have generated the flaps, so in the configuration it was clear that it couldn’t climb at that time,” said Professor Bartsch.
The flaps on the surface are located at the back of the wings. ((ABC News Verifie: Devi Mallal))
He added that they are early days in the investigation, but said that the engine failure was unlikely.
“Double engine errors is almost something that can be completely excluded, because the chances of a motorbike in these modern aircraft is very, very remote,” said Professor Bartsch.
“It really seems that there has been a certain degree of human mistakes in this catastrophe.“
Guy Hirst, a career pilot and aviation trainer, said the ABC that a bird strike could have caused the incident.
“Ahmedabad suffers quite a lot from herds of birds, and although they have done quite a lot at the airport to try to reduce the possibilities, that is always a possibility.”
Another expert agreed that pilot error could be the fault.
“This is an indication for the pilots pulling up the flaps instead of the landing gear after taking off,” former pilot and aviation analyst James Nixon told ABC Melbourne.
A Luchtvaartsexpert Keith Tonkin told ABC News Breakfast, that the landing gear that is left showed that the pilots were occupied.
“The fact that the landing frame was left probably indicates that the pilots were quite busy to try to tackle what those circumstances were,” he said.
According to Reuters, air traffic control said the aircraft did a “Mayday” call what an emergency indicated-network after taking off, but after that point there was no response from the plane.
Authorities are now working on finding the black box of the aircraft-one on-board Crash-protected recording device, which records aircraft data and sound from the cockpit.
This will help researchers to determine exactly what happened to AI717.
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