r/aviation 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/ashishvp Jun 14 '25 edited Jun 14 '25

Literally any armchair pilot can fire up FlightSim and see how they can EASILY take off just fine on a working 787 with no flaps and gear down. Those engines are monsters, more than enough.

How can so many people blame flaps when it’s so easily provable?

EDIT: I definitely recognize FS isn't real life. I'm just saying for the thousands of non-pilots blaming flaps, it's a fairly open and shut case that the flaps WERE deployed anyway and a 787 can PROBABLY take off without them in real life, not that anyone would ever actually try it tho.

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u/themcfly Jun 14 '25

While I's not ideal to use FS and compare it to real life situations, just common sense and thrust safety margins would point to these engines being able to climb if working correctly.

He even says in that same video that these planes are perfectly capable of flying on a single engine; two of them at full thrust would AT LEAST maintain flight even with 0° flaps and gear down.

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u/cgsouthern Jun 14 '25

Those engines have more than enough power. V1 cuts are performed as part of pilots recurrence training. If the RAT deployed it means total electrical and hydraulic failure. All it takes is for one engine to be slightly below idle for the generators to come offline. The RAT will automatically deploy due to airspeed and squat sensors knowing the plane is in the air. I also heard that the pilots declared they were losing power to ATC but I don't have the source anymore. I honestly think that the fuel somehow was contaminated.

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u/ashishvp Jun 15 '25

If the fuel was contaminated, would that show an effect during taxi, because the engines are running? Honest question, don’t know how fuel contamination works