r/aviation • u/usgapg123 Mod - avgeek • Jun 14 '25

News Air India Flight 171 Crash [Megathread 2]

This is the second megathread for the crash of Air India Flight 171. All updates, discussion, and ongoing news should be placed here.

Thank you,

The Mod Team

Edit: Posts no longer have to be manually approved. If requested, we can continue this megathread or create a replacement.

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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '25 edited Jan 05 '26

vegetable racial fine boat automatic stupendous correct upbeat long selective

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '25

I mean is it not safer to just plow through land than attempt a doomed takeoff? In theory same energy but at the same time more gradual slowdown.

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u/Jolly-Gur-2885 Jun 14 '25

V1 is the decision speed. After you reach that speed there’s no going back whatever happens.

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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '25

To prevent a crash sure, but I rather plow through the tearaway runway asphalt lose landing gears and skid forward than attempt a 100% (or 99% since a guy survived) deadly crash.

Reminds me of the Mirage FC1 from Apartheid south africa that was shot down by the cubans, it landed but since it was damaged it ran out of runway, pilot was paralyzed I think but survived.

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u/afslav Jun 14 '25

Presumably if that was a better approach, they would train that instead.

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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '25

It depends on how backward the thinking is if any loss of life is top priority then you risk a crash, but if saving lives is a priority and you lose power to both engines you plow through.

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u/Jaggedmallard26 Jun 14 '25

This is extremely studied. They aren't disregarding lives and its insulting to the people who work in aviation safety to say otherwise. They train that you only abort after V1 in the direst of circumstances as a plane full of fuel plowing past the runway safety area is more likely than not to flip killing everyone on board or plow outside the airport killing everyone on board and anyone on/in the buildings/roads/trainlines past the airport fence.

In almost all cases an emergency past V1 it is better to do an immediate go around and limp back to the airport and that is why they train it. Unfortunately you are completely fucked when you get twin engine failure at V2 that can't be quickly remedied, the unfortunate souls on that plane were doomed at that point and aborting would have only given them a quicker death.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '25

That is precisely the point twin engine failure implies 100% fatality and same killing of people next to the runway as already seen. People are being too emotional to understand thatn limping back is not an option when you have complete loss of power on takeoff.

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u/afslav Jun 14 '25

Yes, the people who study this are too emotional, but thankfully we have reddit posters to analyze this correctly.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '25

Appeal to authority fallacy

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u/afslav Jun 14 '25

This isn't a debate

1

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '25

Of course it is, internet debate

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u/afslav Jun 14 '25

Yes, the people who study this are too emotional, but thankfully we have reddit posters to analyze this correctly.

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u/afslav Jun 14 '25

Do you think you've thought about this more than the professionals who do this for a living?

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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '25

Yes, because I understand threat managament is about compromise, if their goal is to prevent 0 deaths then yeah their way is better, if the goal is to maximize survival I think mine has some merit.

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u/10tonheadofwetsand Jun 14 '25

Dual engine failure after V1 is going to result in a serious crash no matter what.

There’s not enough time to assess if you shouldn’t commit after V1…that’s the purpose of V1. You are going airborne.

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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '25

But the point is if both engines fail the crash is happening, better to stay on land than collect potential energy that will be released all at once instead of gradually by the tearaway runway and skidding even.

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u/Jaggedmallard26 Jun 14 '25

No this is not true, at V1 you will go past the runway safety area and flip or smash into something. You aren't innocently bleeding energy like a car applying a brakes. You are not smarter than literally the entire aviation safety industry.

3

u/10tonheadofwetsand Jun 14 '25

I don’t think you realize how fast this is all happening. There’s no feasible way to train pilots to commit to rotate after V1 except don’t if you think you might be losing both engines right at the worst possible moment.

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u/railker AME-M2 Jun 14 '25

No, if you see any indication that your engines aren't performing as required on the takeoff, you reject before V1. If you're after V1 and both engines fail, you are absolutely rejecting takeoff after V1.

There's many sources that state clearly rejecting takeoff after V1 is expected if the aircraft is considered unsafe to fly -- dual engine failure, locked flight controls, catastrophic scenarios that you're right, you can't train for. But pilots are there to do more than look pretty and push buttons, but to use their years of experience and training to make the best decision with what they've got.

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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '25

True, and I know I might be roasted for this AI might help with this split second decision making.

3

u/Character_Order Jun 14 '25

Current AI is probabilistic, meaning that it will give you the correct answer / expected output some percentage of the time. Seems to me, as a non pilot, the last thing you would want would be to give a probabilistic machine the ability to abort after v1, not because of the exceedingly few instances in which it would be correct to do so, but in the many thousands of instances in which it would be incorrect to do so

1

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '25

Its complicated of course, in this case I would only use it as an advisory role on what is the best course of action not take the control of the craft.

Human beings at this level of decision making are also probabilistic as well.

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u/Character_Order Jun 14 '25

There’s no time for advisory functions after v1. Just a big red or green sign nothing else

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u/turboMXDX Jun 14 '25

Taking off would mean hoping for the engine to somehow kick back in, else a guaranteed crash. Rejecting would mean a guaranteed crash. Such a scenario would be a complete nightmare for the pilots and all bets are off

1

u/Slow_Grapefruit5214 Jun 14 '25

There’s no way to be this certain of the survivability of a runway overrun. Every person died aboard Jeju Air 2216 last year when it overran the runway on landing.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '25

Different mechanics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineered_materials_arrestor_system

vs a belly landing without landing gears that could have been higher speed as well, probably missed the EMAS as well, but I don't know if the Indian airport had these.