logo
Air India crash mystery deepens as expert blames terrifying 'glitch'

Air India crash mystery deepens as expert blames terrifying 'glitch'

Daily Mirror03-07-2025
The doomed Air India flight that crashed into a medical campus shortly after take-off may have suffered a terrifying "glitch", according to an aviation expert.
The tragic plane crash killed 241 people on board and 19 on the ground on June 12, after the flight crashed just thirty seconds into the journey. The London-bound Air India aircraft, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, collided with a medical college hostel soon after taking off from the western city of Ahmedabad. Brit Vishwash Kumar Ramesh remarkably survived the tragedy.
An investigation is underway into the disaster. Authorities are analysing data extracted from the plane's black boxes, which will help shed light on the cause of the crash.
Mary Schiavo is a former US Department of Transportation official and a current aviation analyst. She believes the crash may have been a "computer problem" that suffered a "glitch."
The expert said: "I believe this crash was a computer problem. There are several 787 components that rely on computer code to tell the plane whether it is in the air or on the ground. If the computer or code malfunctions, the engines spool back and the thrust is reduced, even if in flight.
"This happened on an ANA 787 flight in 2019, which suffered a dual engine failure as it landed, and I'm afraid it could have occurred on the fatal Air India Flight 171."
Experts from India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau are probing the crash with assistance from the UK, the US and officials from Boeing.
Amit Singh, a former pilot and an aviation expert, said the recovery of the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, or black boxes, are crucial to piece together the sequence of events.
The cockpit voice recorder records pilots' conversation, emergency alarms and any distress signal made before a crash. The plane's digital flight data recorder stores information related to engine and control settings. Both devices are designed to survive a crash.
'The data will reveal everything,' Singh said, adding that the technical details could be corroborated by the cockpit voice recorder that would help investigators know of any communication between air traffic control and the pilots.
India's aviation regulatory body has said the aircraft made a mayday call before the crash. Singh said the investigating authorities will scan CCTV footage of the nearby area and speak with witnesses to get to the root cause of the crash.
Additionally, Singh said, the investigators will also study the pilot training records, total load of the aircraft, thrust issues related to the plane's engine, as well as its worthiness in terms of past performances and any previously reported issues.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

I changed phone deal to save money – then EE said I wracked up £94 in extra charges
I changed phone deal to save money – then EE said I wracked up £94 in extra charges

The Sun

time5 hours ago

  • The Sun

I changed phone deal to save money – then EE said I wracked up £94 in extra charges

Q. I've had a mobile phone contract with BT for the last eight years and currently pay £12.66 a month. In April, I was offered a new contract with more data for just £10 a month. 1 The contract was provided by EE as the two networks are merging. I was pleased with the offer so I agreed and signed up. But I was shocked when I received my first bill for March. I was charged an eye-watering £56 - £43.34 more than in February. The next month another shock bill followed, this time for £58. Both times I was told that I had gone over my data allowance. When I called and asked what I had used the extra data for I was told that the company does not have the information. I thought this was unfair, especially as I had set up a £40 bill cap on my account. I have spent hours on the phone trying to sort this out. Is there anything you can do? Malcolm Finch, via email. A. We all use data to scroll on social media, surf the web and stay connected to our loved ones. But in this situation your contract caused a disconnect between you and EE. It is important to read the terms and conditions of a mobile phone contract before you sign up. Although it may seem similar to your current plan, there could be higher fees or penalties if you make too many calls, use extra data or send lots of texts. This is what happened in your case. BT said you exceeded your data limit on your March and April bills. You were charged for the data you used up to your spending cap of £40 a month. A spending cap allows you to limit how much you can use your phone outside of your normal plan. BT has agreed to refund you £79.98 for the additional charges as a gesture of goodwill. A member of its team has also called to explain how the spending cap works so you do not get hit with a big bill again. This case shows how important it is to set a spending cap that you can afford. It should help you to limit how much you spend on roaming, picture messages and texts, which can stop you racking up extra charges. If you have a spending cap in place then your provider should let you know when you are getting close to your allowance. That's why I was very surprised that EE unwittingly let you rack up such a big bill, but I'm glad you have got your money back. Squeeze team total: £224,628.

Two-fifths of mobile phones stolen in Europe are taken in UK, data reveals
Two-fifths of mobile phones stolen in Europe are taken in UK, data reveals

The Guardian

time6 hours ago

  • The Guardian

Two-fifths of mobile phones stolen in Europe are taken in UK, data reveals

Nearly two in every five phones stolen in Europe are taken in the UK, according to data collated an insurance firm. An analysis of claims made to the American insurance company SquareTrade showed that 39% of all phone thefts across the company's 12 European markets were in Britain. This was despite the UK only making up 10% of the company's European customers. The data revealed that phone theft claims in the UK had increased by 425% since June 2021 and 42% of phone thefts in the UK occurred in London. This equated to 16% of all phone thefts in Europe. The data, reported by the Times, comes amid growing concern about phone snatching, with police saying gangs are now stealing handsets as an easier way to make money than drug dealing. The Metropolitan police said about 80,000 phones were stolen in London last year, describing the phenomenon as an 'organised criminal enterprise'. The stolen devices had a street value of about £20m, with iPhones being targeted most frequently. James Conway, a Met police commander specialising in phone thefts, said phone theft had become more prevalent among gangs partly due to a growing demand for such gadgets in overseas markets, creating opportunities for 'huge profitability'. Conway said: 'These are the same sort of gangs that are also running county lines operations and dealing [drugs] but are getting increasingly involved in robbery and theft … They can make a far greater profit than from dealing drugs in the same period of time with a lower risk from a criminal justice perspective.' The commander added: 'The sort of sentences you see for drug trafficking or drug dealing offences, and those you might receive for a series of thefts as a young person are very different.' The police have called for phone companies to cut off cloud services on stolen phones in an effort to reduce their resale value. Representatives of Google and Apple told the House of Commons science and technology committee last month that security features were already in place to protect customer data. Simon Wingrove, a software engineering manager at Google, said its system for such situations was 'robust and works very well'. Gary Davis, a senior director in regulatory and legal at Apple, said the company was concerned about the potential for fraud. He said there was a risk of bad actors attempting to obtain data and the power to delete accounts for blackmailing victims. The Apple representative added the company had invested 'many hundreds of millions' in designing protections for its customers against phone theft.

Robot bricklayers that can work round the clock coming to Britain
Robot bricklayers that can work round the clock coming to Britain

Telegraph

time8 hours ago

  • Telegraph

Robot bricklayers that can work round the clock coming to Britain

Robot bricklayers are set to be trialled on British construction sites amid warnings of a major labour shortage in the house building industry. The machines, developed by Dutch company Monumental, use two mechanical arms that dispense mortar and lay bricks at a similar pace to a human. That is equivalent to roughly 500 bricks per robot in a typical eight-hour shift, but they can be programmed to work around the clock if required – albeit under human supervision. It represents one potential solution to help ease a chronic shortage of brickies in Britain's construction industry, with experts warning that at least 25,000 more are needed to meet the Government's house-building plans. In the Netherlands, Monumental's machines have already built facades for dozens of houses as well as canal-supporting walls in housing developments. They can construct straight-lined brick walls and some cornering. Now, Monumental is preparing to trial the machines in the UK for the first time with London bricklaying contractor Galostar, a company that has previously worked on residential projects as well as bigger schemes such as the Olympic Stadium in Stratford, east London, and the capital's Sadler's Wells Theatre. Tony Chapman, Galostar's managing director, said the tests were expected to begin next month. They will initially focus on whether the robots can be successfully adapted to British standards and can handle being deployed on scaffolding. He said: 'We don't think they [the machines] will ever completely replace brickies, but they can certainly help with the skills shortages we are dealing with. 'From our point of view it also helps because the robots don't need breaks, they don't take time off, and so if you have several of them you will know exactly what your output is going to be.' One person can supervise two of the machines at once but the supervisor does not need to be a qualified bricklayer, meaning it should be easier to keep construction sites manned, said Salar al Khafaji, Monumental's co-founder. He said: 'You just contract us to do work, and we will come with our machines to do the work, instead of a bunch of humans. 'Your labour pool will now be much bigger, and you can work multiple shifts.' He expects to charge about the same as the going rate for a human brickie, or around £1 per brick. Monumental says the robots can also be programmed to lay different brick configurations and patterns. It potentially opens the door for a return to the more elaborate styles of brickwork beloved by Victorian and Edwardian builders that are considered too labour-intensive by large-volume housebuilders today. 'Today, if you want to ask for a very nice, patterned facade with two brick colours, you'll get an outrageously expensive quote, because it's quite hard and it will slow the masons down,' Mr al Khafaji added. 'But this is exactly the kind of thing that robots excel at – you just enter it once, and our system allows you to have a mixed supply of coloured bricks and different types of bricks. 'And we won't charge you more, because it's not more expensive. So you'll be able to bring some of those things back into the industry. 'We're doing a canal wall in Amsterdam soon with really elaborate patterns – bricks sticking out, that sort of thing. It's kind of crazy, I'm very excited about it.' Mr al Khafaji is a former executive at Palantir, the US defence tech giant co-founded by PayPal billionaire and Donald Trump supporter Peter Thiel. He said he wanted to apply his expertise in software and machine learning to help solve problems in the construction industry, which has long been viewed by economists as a laggard. He co-founded Monumental in 2021 with Sebastiaan Visser. The pair raised $25m (£18.6m) from investors last year. They have long been eyeing the UK – where roughly five times as many bricks are laid per year than in the Netherlands – because of the huge national shortage of bricklayers. A recent report by the Home Builders Federation and the Construction Industry Training Board estimated that 25,000 more brickies are needed to meet the Government's target to build 1.5m homes before the next election.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store