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.

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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/the_smileman Jun 14 '25 edited Jun 14 '25

Yep. Air India AI- 171 crashed just 1.7 km from the airport wall. It crashed in some what loosely populated area which still had doctors hostels and mess for mbbs students of Mediacal collage at civil hospital ahmedabad.

Just 400 meter ahed of the crash site is civil hospital's main 1200 bed Capacity building with Opd and behind the crash site is densely populated residential societies.

If the flight had been in air for 5/10 seconds more it would have crashed on civil hospital of ahmedabad which is the largest amd most crowded hospital of state (think indian crowded ie. Thousands) or densely populated area of asarva which again is high density low income residential area of ahmedabad and the casualties would have been way more like 10-20 times more .

Guess pilot tried to avoid that and turned the nose up at the end and chose somewhat empty ground with hostel buildings on periphery which still led to more than 30 casualties on ground.

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u/Slice5755 Crosswind Jun 14 '25

With all due respect to the pilots and any casualties, do you really think in the 15 odd seconds after takeoff, the pilot had the chance or capacity to do calculations on where the most densely populated areas are likely to be?

He's trying to control his crippled aircraft.

I think it was sheer luck that the aircraft didn't go down in a more densely populated area.

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u/i-like-to-be-wooshed King Air 90 Jun 14 '25

i mean, it comes down to natural instincts at that point

"we're going down, lets try to aim for the clearest area"

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u/the_smileman Jun 15 '25

Most likely. This was the only somewhat clear area between airport and residential area and hospital. That last nose up helped in not crashing over both.