‘Mayday, no thrust, losing power': The call that sealed the fate of Air India Flight 171

The Age

a day ago

Moments earlier, the departure lounge of Ahmedabad airport had been the usual mix of excitement and anticipation as passengers returned home from holidays, headed off on adventures or looked forward to family reunions ahead of their scheduled 9 hours and 50 minute non-stop flight to London Gatwick.
They included married couple Fiongal and Jamie Greenlaw-Meek, from London, who passed the time by recording an Instagram video, in which Fiongal smiled and rolled his eyes as Jamie said they were about to board a '10 hour flight back to England'.
Also waiting in the lounge was Adnan Master, a 30-year-old east Londoner who had been visiting relatives in India, the Lalgi family, from Wembley, and Raxa Modha, from Northamptonshire. Others were flying home to Leicester.
Local passengers at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport had noticed that at least one VIP was among them – Vijay Rupani, the former chief minister of the Gujarat region, in which the airport is situated.
Their Air India aircraft was being cleaned, fuelled and readied for boarding. The passengers may have been reassured by the fact that it was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, a type of jet that had never been involved in a fatal accident.
The weather was ideal for flying: sunny and dry, with an air temperature approaching 40C.
Everything appeared normal as the passengers boarded and the aircraft taxied towards runway 23 shortly after 1.30pm local time on Thursday (6pm AEST).
On board were 230 passengers – 169 Indian nationals, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian – and 12 crew. Eleven of those on board were children.
In the cockpit, Sabharwal and Kundar, who boasted more than 9000 hours of flying time between them, increased power and comfortably reached take-off speed, clocking 174 knots according to data recorded on the ground.
What happened next was captured on CCTV footage that will form crucial evidence for air crash investigators.
The 12-year-old aircraft became airborne at 1.38pm and appeared to take off normally, then climbed for 11 seconds before it stopped gaining altitude.
For the next 19 seconds it gradually lost altitude, drifting slightly from starboard to port, its wings remaining level as the crew fought to keep it in the air.
In those fateful moments, Sabharwal issued his mayday call, but after it reached a maximum altitude of barely 400ft above the runway all contact with the aircraft was lost.
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Video footage shows it suffering a catastrophic loss of lift as the pilot said he was losing power. Then it glided down to the ground, still in its nose-up take-off angle, and after disappearing behind trees in the camera's line of sight it crashed just a few hundred yards from the end of the runway in a fireball that could be seen for miles around.
The aircraft had crashed in a built-up suburb called Meghani Nagar that includes the campus of a medical college, the BJ Medical College, as well as homes and offices.
Raju Prajapati, a resident of the Shahibaug neighbourhood, just a few hundred metres from the crash site, told The Telegraph : 'We heard a huge explosion and rushed out of our homes.
'There were thick plumes of black smoke rising into the sky. People were shouting and running in all directions.'
Another man at the scene said: 'I was sitting at home, there was a loud noise, it felt like an earthquake. I came out and saw smoke, I didn't realise it was a plane crash, then I came here and I found out and I saw the crashed plane – there were many bodies lying on the ground.'
Inside the medical college, students were sitting down to lunch when the aircraft clipped the dining room. One photograph taken inside the building showed abandoned meals still on tables and a large piece of the aircraft's tail section jutting into the end of the room.
A woman called Ramila said: 'My son had gone to the hostel during lunch break, and the plane crashed there. My son is safe, and I have spoken to him. He jumped from the second floor, so he suffered some injuries.'
Pictures showed wreckage, including the landing gear, embedded in the building.
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As rescuers rushed to the scene it seemed impossible that anyone had survived the crash and the fire that followed.
Incredibly, Ramesh not only survived but was able to walk away from the wreckage unaided. He appeared to have suffered only minor injuries and was later able to speak to his family from his hospital bed.
The front portion of the fuselage, including the area where Ramesh had been sitting, was one of several large parts of the aircraft that were left lying in what had been busy streets near the medical centre.
One of the aircraft's wings, with its registration number VT-ANB clearly visible in large red letters, lay largely intact on the ground, as did the tailfin with its distinctive Air India logo.
Evidence of the individual lives lost in the tragedy was strewn everywhere.
One building had piles of clothes on ledges where they had burst out of passengers' suitcases in the crash; nearby charred suitcases and other belongings were mixed with twisted metal and wiring looms from the aircraft. Charred bodies were also visible among the wreckage.
Tim Atkinson, a former accident investigator, told the BBC it was 'probably the most complex scene that I've seen pictures of'.
He said: 'This is going to be a very lengthy and extraordinarily difficult and awkward crash site for those working on it to be involved in.'
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Inevitably, lives had also been lost on the ground., thought the number of deaths is not known.
At the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad, staff formed a long line with gurneys covered in white sheets, ready to receive the remains of the dead, while relatives of those on board gathered, desperate for news.
Mahendra Vasandiya, 65, stood quietly among the crowd.