An aviation expert says that shocking new footage of the Air India flight shows why it crashed after take off.
The plane carrying 242 passengers and crew went down on Thursday (12 June), killing all but one person on board.
Air India Flight AI171 was bound for London Gatwick when it set off from Ahmedabad in western India but lost signal and issued a mayday call within a minute of taking to the air. It had only climbed to 625 feet before crashing into a hostel for doctors and medical students.
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Having shared his suspicions over what caused the tragedy, commercial airline pilot and crash analyst Steve Schreiber says this new footage indicates what went wrong.
Known as ‘Captain Steeeve’ to his YouTube followers, he says a ‘tiny detail’ in the video is a ‘total game-changer’.
Emerging in the days since, the video is somewhat of a higher quality, and from watching it, Schreiber now believes the aircraft experienced a dual engine failure.
Beneath the plane’s right wing, he reckons there is a ‘protrusion on the belly of the aircraft’ with a ‘little grey dot’ just beneath it.
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Captain Steve says this is an indication that the Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s Ram Air Turbing (RAT) had been activated.
"Many airplanes have it," he explains. "It is just behind the wing on the right side of the airplane, there is a little door that holds it in.
“It looks like a little Evinrude motor, it's a little two-bladed prop. Its function is to provide electrical and hydraulic pressure for the aircraft in an extreme emergency."
Schreiber says that on this type of aircraft, the RAT is automatically deployed under one of three conditions: “A massive electrical failure, a massive hydraulic failure or a dual engine failure.”
And he believes the ‘protrusion’ and grey dot were visual evidence of it being put in place.
“That little grey dot is the RAT," he explains. "The protrusion is the door that opened to allow the RAT to come down."
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Plus, he reckons the sound from the video further backs it up as he adds: “A RAT makes a unique sound, it sounds like a propeller airplane going by, or a real high-pitched squeal. It is essentially spinning at the speed of sound to generate the energy, electrical and hydraulic that it needs to.
"If you weren't looking at it, it sounded like a single-engine prop airplane just flew by."
While it is intended to help planes in the event of an engine failure, analyst points out that the RAT is not ‘designed’ to be deployed at such low altitude ‘but it is evidence’ for what caused the incident.
He summarises: “It is evidence for us it was dual engine failure, most likely. It could have been electrical issue, it could have been hydraulic issue, it could have been either one of that. But I think the fact the aeroplane is mushing out the sky gives the idea it was a dual engine failure."
Captain Steve's comments remain to be a theory and Air India is yet to confirm a cause.
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LADbible has contacted Air India for comment.
Jess Battison