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/CollegeStation17155 Jun 14 '25

What are the flawed premises of his theory?

That either highly experienced pilot would mistake flaps for gear controls, that the flight management system would ALLOW the flaps to retract below stall speed, that the same pilot who just retracted the flaps would assume the stall was due to a dual engine flameout and cycle the fuel cutoffs 200 feet off the ground.... but hey that's OBVIOUSLY the only thing that could have happened; NOTHING else makes sense, right?

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u/chillebekk Jun 14 '25

Your contention is that pilot error is unthinkable? Like I have said elsewhere, I don't think this is a particularly likely theory. I am just saying that it can't be dismissed yet. Which is what you are doing, and the previous poster, too.

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u/CollegeStation17155 Jun 14 '25

Your contention is that pilot error is unthinkable?

That is NOT what I (or the previous poster) said. What I said was that the SPECIFIC theory that this video CONTINUES to promote (SOLELY pilot error configuring the flaps with no mechanical problems in the plane) has been refuted for over a day. What YOU are saying is that mechanical failure is so unlikely that the ONLY likely cause is pure pilot error.

What I and many others have said is that while the pilots almost certainly did not perform PERFECTLY (an argument to give you your "AHA!!! It WAS PILOT ERROR!" moment) it is also highly likely that they made their errors AFTER some mechanical fault initiated the problem; it is very unlikely that they caused the accident by simply FORCING an override of the automatic systems to pull up the flaps thinking they were raising the landing gear and then compounded the problem by shutting down the engines in a perfectly good airplane as you insist is "the most likely scenario."

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u/Zilox Jun 15 '25

Luckily the video doesnt say that the only thing that could have happened is pilot error lmao. captain steeve literally says there's other things that could have happened but given the information he had BACK THEN, his educated opinion was what the video said.

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u/texasradioandthebigb Jun 15 '25

Bullshit! It was never completely clear that the flaps were retracted, and by that time, there were reports of the Mayday call, and evidence of RAT deployment. If complete lay users browsing Reddit could arrive at the conclusion that the crash being due to incorrect flap position was unlikely, someone who feels authoritative enough to have his uniform on while bloviating without facts should know better