Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crash, 242 aboard

The Coffee Shop
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Unimaginable.

There were 242 passengers and crew members on board the Air India flight that crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad on Thursday, the airline said in a statement.

“Of these, 169 are Indian nationals, 53 are British nationals, 1 Canadian national and 7 Portuguese nationals,” Air India said.

Air India flight AI171 was scheduled to depart from Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, bound for London Gatwick, at 9.50 a.m. local time, according to aviation tracker FlightRadar24.

The signal from the aircraft was lost at 10.08 a.m. local time (12.38 a.m. ET) at 625 feet, according to FlightRadar24 data.

169 are Indian nationals, 53 are British nationals, 1 Canadian national and 7 Portuguese nationals.

Looks like a fairly controlled descent into an urban area.

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Live video feed of rescue efforts:

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Crashed into a doctors hostel. Terrible crash no survivors of the plane.

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Watch the video, gear down but no flaps. How could that happen???

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BBC is saying 100 dead. 242 aboard.

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No idea. Since it is 5 min after takeoff I presume gear never went up.
Whenever I hear Air India I think of the plane blown up in 1985

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100 confirmed dead maybe?
I can’t see how anyone could survive that explosion.

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I thought you didn’t trust BBC

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They announced no survivors and they are expecting certain deaths on the ground

Initial evaluation by the internet is gear down flaps up at that point of a flight is abnormal

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Reporting now suggests no survivors from the flight, almost certainly fatalities on the ground. We’re probably looking at 300 or more killed.

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Terrible news.

I think those on board must have realized they’re in their last moments.

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No, it’s your disingenuous takeaways from BBC articles that I don’t trust.

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Evidently one survivor being reported

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at least five students at the medical college, where the plane hit a dining facility as students were having lunch, according to Minakshi Parikh, the dean of the college.

The fate of 38 people onboard remained unclear, and officials left open the possibility that some had survived. Campbell Wilson, Air India’s chief executive, said that “injured passengers” had been taken to the hospital.

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Based on their lack of climb after take-off, I wonder if, right after take-off, one of the pilots fully or partially retracted the flaps and left the landing gear out? (when they should have retracted the gear and left the flaps out)

Because the climb profile sort of matches a very slow plane unable to generate lift from wings configured for high-speed flight.

But just conjecture.

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Looks like at least one survivor from the flight itself. He also says that about 30 seconds into the flight there was a loud noise and then the crash.

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crazy that he survived, also crazy that we’re likely to have his whole life story within hours

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Yeah, like his wife and child weren’t on the plane and he’s called them to let them know he survived. Sadly, he may have lost his brother who was on board.

He looks remarkably good, considering that huge fireball.

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I’m almost going the other way on this… it came down so slowly and flat, like a landing normally feels, that I bet many people were thinking they were going to make a rough belly landing but that they would be getting up and running for the emergency exits soon after it banged to the ground. I think that’s the mindset that any optimistic person would have… or try to have.

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I’m a window seat guy. And if I saw that we weren’t continuing to ascend right after takeoff, nor circling back to the airport, but descending over/into a crowded urban area… I’m thinking the worst.

But you may be right. Comment from the survivor suggests that there wasn’t a lot of time to think about it. Survivor was in 11A, looks like in the first row behind the 1st class section. For those that died, maybe a good thing to not have thought about it.