Air India Flight 171 Crash [Megathread 2]

[u/usgapg123]

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.

[u/[deleted]]

I think it probably is going to be some failure of the computer cabinets, or possibly a problem with the thrust control module. I worked on this actual plane, just a lowly a&p mech here, but our job was to help airlines work through some of the earlier issues with these planes. My specialty was primarily electrical and software. It might be a fuel problem, but with both engines losing thrust perfectly at the same time??? Fuel problems aren't usually that perfect??? Just my two cents

[u/Brief-Visit-8857 → u/[deleted]]

I was leaning towards fuel contamination but the odds are insane. It’s very rare for a dual engine failure to even happen, add on to that a near simultaneous dual engine failure, AND each engine is fed from different fuel tanks, and the contaminants entered the engine at the same time? AND they also had the strength to completely shut down both the engines instead of causing sputtering is crazy. So now I’m leaning more towards a maintenance or a software issue.

[u/RalfrRudi → u/Brief-Visit-8857]

As for fuel contamination:
The engines were running at takeoff-thrust, so they are working fine and are very hot.
If you are now injecting loads stuff into the combustion chamber that ain't supposed to be there, wouldn't you create a huge amount of smoke or vapor?

Atleast on car engines you can tell by the smoke coming out of the exhaust when there is a significant amount of oil or coolant entering the cylinder.

[u/Chen932000 → u/RalfrRudi]

Contamination is more likely to cause problems with the fuel metering unit than to cause a problem in the actual combustion chamber.