[HN Gopher] Air India flight to London crashes in Ahmedabad with...
___________________________________________________________________
Air India flight to London crashes in Ahmedabad with more than 240
onboard
Author : Gud
Score : 431 points
Date : 2025-06-12 09:21 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| m4tthumphrey wrote:
| Seems like they lost power?
| https://x.com/georgiameloniii/status/1933091545248641248
| hnpolicestate wrote:
| Did the Italian PM really say "I pray all passengers are safe"
| after posting that fireball?
| aaldrick wrote:
| its a parody account
| AHTERIX5000 wrote:
| It seems to be a parody account
| ihuk wrote:
| There's a better, longer video on Reddit. At the beginning of
| the video, it sounds like the Ram Air Turbine (RAT) is
| deployed, which would suggest a dual engine failure.
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| Dual engine failure with a stall right at the end as it's
| going in.
|
| Guessing it's either a foreign object ingested into both
| engines, probably a bird strike, or fuel starvation.
| ihuk wrote:
| Here's a Reddit video: https://www.reddit.com/r/ahmedabad/c
| omments/1l9i1ga/om_shant...
|
| And here's a YouTube video showing a Ram Air Turbine (RAT)
| being deployed on a 787 for comparison:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFBCGf50Trc&t=69s
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| I'm assuming the Ram Air Turbine gives extra evidence of
| a dual engine failure (or at least the engine that
| generated power). Engine spools down, power is lost, air
| turbine needs to be deployed.
| ihuk wrote:
| Yeah, I believe the RAT is automatically deployed when
| both engines fail or when there's a critical loss of
| pressure in the hydraulic systems.
| ExoticPearTree wrote:
| I don't see the RAT deployed on the video on Reddit. Can
| you tell the timestamp to zoom in? I'm super curious.
| consp wrote:
| Those things are tiny and very transparent (since it's
| pretty much a propeller) and video compression, plus it's
| a video of a screen, will eat it up against a clear sky.
| ihuk wrote:
| https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GtPFDrnbAAA6c68?format=jpg&na
| me=...
|
| It could be the blurry object under the fuselage, just to
| the right of the left engine.
| lormayna wrote:
| Going OT: why a parody account of Italian PM is tweeting a
| video about an airplane accident in India? Really weird
| captn3m0 wrote:
| The account is run from India.
| uncircle wrote:
| That raises even more questions.
| arandomusername wrote:
| It's very common, ever since twitter added monetization.
| It makes the site a lot more unbearable.
| thatloststudent wrote:
| Not really, this is more of an internet meme [1].
|
| [1] - https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/pm-modi-
| responds-to-it...
| potato3732842 wrote:
| To be fair, you kinda gotta be on the outside of
| something to make good humor about it.
| gsky wrote:
| People always tweet trending stuff for popularity as simple
| as that
| lormayna wrote:
| But this seems a "first hand" content, not a retweet.
| xeromal wrote:
| Could be something as simple as a follower sending the
| video to the account knowing it will be shared
| account42 wrote:
| It could simply be reposted from another site or
| downloaded from a tweet and uploaded without attribution.
| snickerbockers wrote:
| Sometimes it's hard to tell the truth about what obviously
| just happened so all you can bear to do is say something
| unreasonably optimistic.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Because Twitter is a very weird and inauthentic place.
| snickerbockers wrote:
| jesus, that's terrifying. The pilot has control of the plane
| all the way down but nowhere to even attempt a landing. All he
| can do is raise the flaps, deploy the landing gear and hope for
| the best.
|
| Although TBH it also seems like a failure of city planning,
| aren't most major airports outside of the limits of the city
| they're associated with because of stuff like this? I know most
| of them don't have anywhere safe to attempt an emergency
| landing immediately after leaving the runway but at least there
| aren't a bunch of homes and office buildings.
| navigate8310 wrote:
| This is India we are talking about. The population density
| and surrounding encroachment is usually why even small
| domestic cylinder blast could take lives of 100s.
| placardloop wrote:
| No, they're not. Of the 20 largest airports in the US, all
| but one of them have homes and offices surrounding them. The
| one that doesn't is Denver, that's mostly only because
| Denver's airport is relatively new and the development hasn't
| reached it yet.
| snickerbockers wrote:
| that's actually not true and it's very easy to disprove
| because SFO is in the top 20
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_busiest_airports_
| i....
|
| I'm sure this is an airport most of the people on this site
| are familiar with but just in case you aren't, it's on
| reclaimed land in the San Francisco bay.
| placardloop wrote:
| There's a massive, incredibly dense neighborhood of
| houses and offices less than 1000 feet to the south,
| west, and north of every one of SFOs runways.
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| SFO is surrounded by numerous highways, office buildings,
| and residential areas
| snickerbockers wrote:
| well yeah but im talking about the part where the planes
| land not the terminal.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| It is 400m from the threshold of 19L/1R to the nearest
| residential neighborhood at SFO. LGA, which is an
| incredibly urban airport has the exact same distance from
| the end of its closest runway to the nearest residential
| area.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| They put airports where there is room to put them. Frequently
| that means that they are well outside cities since finding
| space for a few 2 mile runways in the city is difficult.
|
| However, there are plenty of airports in major cities and
| built up areas (in both developed and developing countries),
| and I have never heard of avoiding building in areas due to
| the (remote) possibility of crashes.
| roncesvalles wrote:
| Most major airports were established long ago (sometimes
| centuries ago) in land that used to be remote. Cities
| eventually expand into the surrounding area.
| ihuk wrote:
| I believe this is the first hull loss of a Boeing 787.
| lvl155 wrote:
| I will reserve my judgement but Boeing can't catch a break.
| bigyabai wrote:
| Sure they can, they're contracted to design America's next-
| generation F-47 fighter jet!
|
| And hell, after the sexy beast they call the X-32 I can't see
| why you wouldn't want their designs:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-32
| whycome wrote:
| And Air Force One? Unless Qatari one gets its spot.
| Symbiote wrote:
| The Guardian live article has a video showing the crash:
|
| Direct link:
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/jun/12/air-india...
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/jun/12/air-india...
| greybox wrote:
| Some news outlets are indicating that there are some survivors:
| https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/air-india-dreamliner-cras...
|
| > Several injured passengers have been evacuated from the scene
| and transported to local hospitals.
|
| Edit: The BBC is reporting local police as saying: "There appears
| to be no survivors"
| https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c8d1r3m8z92t?post=asset%3A8731...
| rcruzeiro wrote:
| Most likely bystanders who got injured.
| baq wrote:
| You ain't walking away from a fully fueled aircraft crashing
| unfortunately...
| SkyeCA wrote:
| Crazier things have happened. It would not be shocking if a
| couple of people survived.
| knifie_spoonie wrote:
| Indeed. There were survivors from that horrific Korean
| flight that crashed into the concrete wall.
| shivam543 wrote:
| Isn't it possible to eject the fuel / fuel tank if crash is
| imminent?
| Symbiote wrote:
| That takes at least 10 minutes, and more like 30+ on a
| large plane like the B787.
|
| Source:
| https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1456931
| Onavo wrote:
| Sure, if you don't want your wings anymore. The wings are
| the primary fuel tanks. You can drain the fuel out during
| flight but the process can take hours.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Ah, the old "Wings Stay On/Wings Fall Off" button.
| pixl97 wrote:
| No.
|
| Some aircraft allow fuel dumps but it is a slow process and
| done at higher elevation relative to the ground.
| ivewonyoung wrote:
| That would create a trolley problem dilemma of its own,
| especially over populated areas.
| stetrain wrote:
| The plane crashed shortly after takeoff in a populated
| area. Dropping 100 tons of fuel or tanks on buildings is
| not good.
|
| Large jets can usually dump fuel but this is something that
| takes time. It's sometimes used in less urgent situations
| where the plane can still fly safely, like a landing gear
| malfunction or single engine failure.
| creaturemachine wrote:
| Now I'm picturing a plane ejecting its wings and somehow
| sticking the lawn dart landing.
| basisword wrote:
| This guy did:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3v6drp96zo
| baq wrote:
| holy shit. relatively unscathed at that. I retract my
| statement obviously.
|
| he must've been thrown out at just the right angle to not
| hit too much along the way...
| franktankbank wrote:
| B.S. how do you walk away from that? This is some frankly
| humiliating reporting by BBC
| whycome wrote:
| Oddly they concatenate his names just as it appears in
| the passenger manifest (which airlines often do). But
| that's not his name.
| franktankbank wrote:
| What do you mean that's not his name?
| Havoc wrote:
| It hit a medical facility of some sort - student doctors etc,
| so maybe also be on ground injured
| kaycey2022 wrote:
| It crashed through the dorms of a medical college. The injured
| must be from there. Unlikely anyone on the plane survived.
|
| Edit: Looks like 1 guy from the plane made it.
| leetrout wrote:
| FlightRadar24 shows them doing an intersection departure with
| only half the runway.
|
| Assuming this is accurate I would think this is a terrible idea
| in a large, heavy aircraft (and I realize they might not have
| been heavy for this flight).
|
| When I was flying I would regularly hear airliners refuse
| intersection departures past a few hundred feet from the end of
| the runway due to company SOPs.
|
| https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/vt-anb#3ac3097f
| piva00 wrote:
| ADS-B at that airport seems very inaccurate, if you look at
| previous departures there are a bunch of planes misplaced.
| HackerLemon wrote:
| Baseless speculation and very unproductive comment. At least
| show some takeoff calculations and perhaps don't speculate with
| confirmed unreliable ADS-B data
| joncrane wrote:
| they backtracked and used the full runway
| calcifer wrote:
| Remember last year when a Boeing engineer whistleblower urged the
| company to ground all 787 Dreamliners?
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/apr/16/boeing-
| whis...
| decimalenough wrote:
| I'm not a fan of Boeing, but let's not start pointing fingers
| yet. We know literally nothing about what caused the accident
| yet, and the 787 Dreamliner has a stellar record: it's been
| flying since 2011, with over 1000 in service, and I believe
| this is its first ever major accident.
| acd10j wrote:
| 737 Max also had stellar records and then they started
| crashing one after other. Boeing has earned this reputation.
| Also as per information from twitter pilot did called mayday
| immediately after takeoff, so high chance of technical issues
| in aircraft.
| decimalenough wrote:
| The two are not remotely comparable. The 737 MAX entered
| commercial service in mid-2017 and had fatal crashes in
| 2018 and 2019, both with aircraft that were only a few
| months old, out of a total fleet in the tens of aircraft.
| shivasaxena wrote:
| Yes, I saw on news a pilot who regularly flies to this
| airport mention bird strikes as a potential cause given the
| bird problem in that area.
|
| I'm very disappointed that in India this aspect is being
| ignored. It should stimulate local/state/central govt to
| solve the slum, urban garbage etc kind of problems.
| voxleone wrote:
| The Telegraph has come up with another (somewhat odd)
| whistleblower story. For all we know so far, it could just as
| well be bird(s) strike(S).
|
| https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/12/whistleblower-ra...
| decimalenough wrote:
| Flightradar24 reports that this occurred immediately after
| takeoff:
|
| _Initial ADS-B data from flight #AI171 shows that the aircraft
| reached a maximum barometric altitude of 625 feet (airport
| altitude is about 200 feet) and then it started to descend with
| an vertical speed of -475 feet per minute._
|
| https://x.com/flightradar24/status/1933091913567285366?t=MhY...
|
| This also means that the flight was fully fueled and it's sadly
| unlikely there will be any survivors. There are also casualties
| on the ground.
| bombcar wrote:
| So 425 above ground level in a plane that has a 200 ft
| wingspan, they barely got out of ground effect.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| There was one Survivor at least!
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/jun/12/air-india...
| fortran77 wrote:
| There's a WSJ report with a free link:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44255817
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Gentle tip from a lifelong aviation enthusiast: wait one week
| before reading on causation.
|
| Exposing yourself to first-week speculation isn't just
| unproductive, it's often counterproductive since the actual
| findings can rhyme with the false speculation closely enough that
| you wind up muddling the two in your mind.
| snickerbockers wrote:
| I hate so much how whenever something bad happens there's a
| huge rush to come up with theories that place the blame on some
| group or ideology you already hated for unrelated reasons. I've
| stopped paying attention to the news in part because I don't
| like how disingenuously giddy people get whenever there's a
| mass-casualty event. I don't even mind morbid curiosity about
| death and suffering but nobody should ever see it as a benefit
| to their chosen group-identity.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Yeah.
|
| But jumping to conclusions serves a variety of human
| emotional needs. And in an attention economy, that means it
| also serves a large industry's economic needs.
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| It speaks for itself that this gets down voted.
|
| The game theory problem is probably that if everyone does it
| you have to do it too.
|
| Like I strongly support equals chances, but if I e.g. get
| discriminated against for being a white heterosexual male ->
| it kinda forces me to vote against it
| matt_s wrote:
| I was just watching something the other day about how jet
| engines have gotten more efficient and powerful over the last
| 50 years where commercial airliners really only need 2 engines.
| All 2 engine aircraft also have to be able to operate on 1
| engine as well if there is a failure.
|
| One has to wonder if this was a bird strike incident on both
| engines that maybe having 4 engines would have allowed the
| plane to circle back around.
| Ichthypresbyter wrote:
| Why would a flock of birds large enough to be ingested by
| both engines of a two-engined plane not also be large enough
| to be ingested by all four engines of a four-engined plane?
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Good point. We should be discussing eight-engine planes.
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| We should be discussing no-engine planes, since they are
| obviously safer in such situations.
| nottorp wrote:
| Yes, why would we put those polluting and noisy engines
| on the plane?
|
| The passengers could just take turns going out and
| pushing.
| bregma wrote:
| Bicycle pedals at every seat. Maybe with a deadman
| interlock so that if you stop pedalling your seat falls
| out of the plane.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| Like the b 52 bomber. I always liked them. We could
| convert them for passenger flights. Airlines could
| develop luggage pods that hang from the wings and the
| planes support mid air refuelling so that could help with
| turnarounds. They also have tail guns for even more
| safety. Also huge bay doors which will make getting on
| and off the plane much faster.
| beAbU wrote:
| Make the cabin a cartridge that clicks into the bottom.
| Give the cabin wheels and propulsion.
| grues-dinner wrote:
| Thunderbird 2 was always the best one. Even if those
| stubby forward-swept wings don't really seem like what
| you need for the normal mission profiles!
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Door to door international service. I like it.
| Integrape wrote:
| ?Por que no los ocho?
| mikeyouse wrote:
| This is where some of the E-Plane concepts really shine.
| Let's see a flock of birds take out every engine on this
| NASA demonstrator:
|
| https://sacd.larc.nasa.gov/asab/asab-
| projects-2/x57maxwell/
| gardenhedge wrote:
| What's with these comments
| moralestapia wrote:
| >Why don't all four tires on a car blow out at the same
| time?
| Ichthypresbyter wrote:
| They do if you drive over a stinger (or perhaps a
| sufficiently large number of nails or other sharp
| objects).
| aipatselarom wrote:
| They also do if you go around the car with a knife and
| you stab them.
|
| But it is somehow implied that the context of the comment
| is normal driving conditions.
|
| Perhaps that comment could be reworded like:
|
| >When driving on a highway, while not being pursued by
| the police, on planet Earth, with a road temperature
| below 200C, and not driving behind a van transporting
| nails with an open door that's dropping them on the road,
| why don't all four tires on a car blow out at the same
| time?
|
| That way people could get a better sense of what it is
| about.
| bregma wrote:
| The kid would have to have a pretty large glass milk
| bottle hidden under his coat for that to happen.
| defrost wrote:
| A multiple engine aircraft maintaining flight on a single
| engine is vastly different to the same craft being able to
| complete a take off when an engine fails mid process.
|
| Aircraft can land (in right circumstances) by gliding in sans
| power .. the same cannot be said for take offs.
| bartread wrote:
| If during your takeoff roll you lose one engine on a twin
| engine jet below speed V1[0], you reject the take-off. V1
| is calculated for the aircraft such that above that speed
| you are able to safely take off and execute a go-around in
| order to land again on just that single engine.
|
| Aborting above V1 is heavily discouraged because usually
| there's a strong risk of running off the end of the runway.
| Of course, if you lose both engines above V1, you're really
| in trouble and left without much choice.
|
| But we don't know what happened with this flight so nothing
| I've said here should be taken as indicative of whatever
| went wrong in this case. It's purely information.
|
| _[0] Which depends on many factors including the type of
| aircraft, loading, weather conditions, state of the runway
| surface - for example, wet, or iced - etc., and needs to be
| calculated afresh for every take off._
| AaronM wrote:
| Modern commercial aircraft is designed to operate on a
| single engine through all modes of flight.
|
| One a plane reaches v1 during takeoff, it can lose an
| engine and still takeoff.
|
| It an engine was lost before v1, the takeoff would be
| aborted.
|
| Here is an Airbus doing just that.
|
| https://youtu.be/5QMJ3_NiWbs?si=5nZ4yU7T7hsGSUu2
| defrost wrote:
| I've spent a few million line kilometres in a variety of
| airframes and understand that "designed to operate"
| through an event is not the same as "actually survives"
| that event.
|
| There are many factors at play and things are complicated
| by unexpected failures.
|
| Thank you for the video that demonstrates a pilot aware
| in advance of planned "engine failure" can cope with such
| an event in scheduled test conditions.
| Symbiote wrote:
| How does sitting in a plane more than average give you
| more insight than the pilots, engineers and safety
| regulators?
| defrost wrote:
| Pilots, aircraft engineers, and safety regulators also
| sit in aircraft.
|
| The phrase "line kilometres" might indicate a smidgeon of
| aviation industry adjacency to some.
|
| EDIT: Above and below comments appear to be low grade
| random sniping in bad faith.
|
| There's a failure to address content and specifics and a
| straw assertion about "more insight than the pilots,
| engineers and safety regulators", a claim that was never
| made.
|
| At best I have the same insights as anyone that worked
| with 20 airframes for a few decades and staged them about
| the globe in that time.
|
| EDIT2: Symbiote has deleted their problematic reply below
| that the first edit was made in response to. The michaelt
| reply came after the reply by Symbiote and is moot, all
| my statements are here, undeleted and unredacted.
| michaelt wrote:
| If you claim to be an aircraft engineer, professional
| pilot, or safety regulator - say so.
|
| Everyone in the formula 1 subreddit uses jargon, none of
| them are F1 drivers.
| Symbiote wrote:
| I can reinstate the reply if you like, but michaelt made
| the same point moments after I did, and I preferred his
| "jargon" rather than my "fancy vocabulary".
| foldr wrote:
| We know that twin-engined airliners can successfully take
| off on one engine. It happens from time to time. E.g.
| https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna179267
| ajross wrote:
| I don't think there's ever been a double-bird-strike
| incident, though. And what dual engine failures I can think
| of are due to failure of a shared system (e.g. fuel
| exhaustion, c.f. Gimli Glider).
|
| [Edit: yeah, yeah, forgot the Tom Hanks movie, sue me. I do
| wish folks would respond to the much more important point
| below, which isn't invalidated by a single data point
| though.]
|
| Constructing solutions for multiple-mode failures like this
| is a bad engineering smell. Almost always the solution isn't
| actually helping anything, and often makes things worse in
| whatever metric you're looking at. In the example here,
| having four engines makes the chances of total thrust loss
| lower, but it _doubles_ the chance of a single engine
| failure. And the literature is filled with incidents of
| theoretically-survivable single engine failures that led to
| hull loss as a proximate cause (generally by confusing or
| panicking the crew).
| changoplatanero wrote:
| > I don't think there's ever been a double-bird-strike
| incident, though
|
| There was this very famous double bird strike
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549
| whycome wrote:
| Hudson/Sully was dual engine bird strike no?
| fabian2k wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549
|
| There certainly have been bird strikes that disabled all
| engines.
| GeertJohan wrote:
| > I don't think there's ever been a double-bird-strike
| incident, though.
|
| The most well known double-bird-strike incident is probably
| the one where Sully landed a plane on the Hudson River.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549#Takeof
| f...
|
| -edit: ok, everyone had the same thought, haha -
| closewith wrote:
| > I don't think there's ever been a double-bird-strike
| incident, though.
|
| What? It happens multiple times a year. They made a movie
| about a famous incident (US Airways Flight 1549). There's
| even events with four engine strike (Eastern Air Lines
| Flight 375).
| ajross wrote:
| While the counterexample is a real gaff on my part, it's
| 100% Absolutely Not True that there are "multiple"
| airliner total thrust failures every year.
| closewith wrote:
| That wasn't your claim, though. You spoke of double-bird-
| strikes, of which there are multiple per year.
|
| So far this year, it's happened at least twice resulting
| in engine failure.
|
| Jan - Air New Zealand NZ207 - aborted take off following
| dual bird strikes and both engines damaged.
|
| ~~Mar - Ryanair FR 4102 - dual bird strikes on landing
| resulting in injuries and hull loss.~~
|
| Before that, in December 2024, Jeju Air Flight 2216
| crashed on landing following dual bird strikes, resulting
| in the loss of all PAX.
|
| These aren't as rare as you believe they are.
| leoedin wrote:
| Ryanair FR 4102 apparently happened in 2008, not March.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair_Flight_4102
| dezgeg wrote:
| The Jeju Air crash from late 2024 (still under
| investigation) also had birds go in both engines.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >Constructing solutions for multiple-mode failures like
| this is a bad engineering smell. Almost always the solution
| isn't actually helping anything
|
| Selection bias
|
| The lower the barrier to entry of the subject matter the
| lower quality the people discussing it. This crap is like
| the Kardashians for white nerds with stem degrees.
|
| The people with the requisite dozen brain cells to common
| sense realize these problems are complex and keep their
| mouths shut.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Everyone's sassing you about forgetting.
|
| But in the video of the plane taking off and crashing,
| there's no clear, obvious, or tell-tale "poof" of bird
| turning into exhaust as there often is in bird strikes.
|
| That doesn't rule it out.
| snickerbockers wrote:
| But does that rule apply during liftoff or only when it's in-
| flight? Based on the map it probably never got that much
| altitude, as it barely traveled 2*length_of_runway, and
| that's including the runway itself.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _does that rule apply during liftoff or only when it 's
| in-flight?_
|
| Any time after it's too late to abort takeoff.
|
| Pilots should be able to "regain full control of the
| aeroplane without attaining a dangerous flight condition in
| the event of a sudden and complete failure of the critical
| engine...at each take-off flap setting at the lowest speed
| recommended for initial steady climb with all engines
| operating after takeoff..." [1].
|
| [1] https://www.easa.europa.eu/en/downloads/136694/en
| _25.143(b)(1)_
| chromehearts wrote:
| The full length was used
| https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/live/air-india-
| boeing-787...
| moralestapia wrote:
| Your comment does not deserve to be downvoted, there is
| absolutely nothing wrong with it.
| klausa wrote:
| It's baseless speculation by someone who doesn't have any
| relevant expertise, based purely on conjecture not any
| facts around the accident.
|
| It's _exactly_ the kind of comment that deserves to be
| downvoted here.
| aipatselarom wrote:
| The guy's just asking if four engines instead of two
| would have made a difference?
|
| It's curiosity, it's learning, it's looking for an
| explanation.
|
| That's _exactly_ the kind of comment that deserves to be
| here.
|
| >[...] who doesn't have any relevant expertise,
|
| Is that a requirement to comment on this thread?
|
| Do you fulfill that requirement you brought in?
| klausa wrote:
| Maybe I'm overly strictly pattern-matching on the type of
| people that tend to use the phrase "one has to wonder";
| but I don't think that's usually uttered from place of
| learning and exploration.
|
| If I'm wrong, then apologies to the OP.
| aipatselarom wrote:
| Do you have relevant expertise in this topic?
| klausa wrote:
| On the topic of dudes online speculating wildly?
|
| Yes, I've been on this website quite a long time,
| unfortunately.
| aipatselarom wrote:
| >On the topic of dudes online speculating wildly?
|
| Is that the topic of this thread?
| klausa wrote:
| Yes.
| account42 wrote:
| Maybe OP also has lots experience speculating about
| airplane safety so let him talk.
| matt_s wrote:
| That is entirely where I'm coming from - plane designs
| from the past had longer wingspans and supported 4
| engines. Engines have gotten more efficient and powerful
| so cross-ocean routes don't need 4 engines anymore.
|
| So I was wondering what if current plane designs had 4
| smaller but equally as efficient engines instead of 2.
| The vast majority of airplane accidents happen at takeoff
| or landings, if some of those can be avoided by having 4
| engines for commercial aircraft, its a worthwhile idea to
| explore.
|
| Also I would venture that 99% of comments on public
| forums like this are from people without expertise. My
| expertise in this space is a curiosity about planes for a
| few decades, taking some actual flying lessons, and being
| generally interested in aviation to go to airshows, watch
| youtube content from pilots, etc. I probably have about
| the same aviation knowledge as an average HN person.
| aipatselarom wrote:
| >taking some actual flying lessons
|
| Unironically, you're probably way more qualified than
| most of the people here throwing rubbish at you.
|
| A classic on places like this.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _was wondering what if current plane designs had 4
| smaller but equally as efficient engines instead of 2_
|
| Impossible to answer until we know the cause. If it was
| independent powerplant failures, then yes. If it was
| _e.g._ fuel contamination, pilots improperly shutting
| down the engine, some other crap failing, then no.
|
| Speaking as someone with aerospace engineering and GA
| pilot experience.
| aipatselarom wrote:
| >if this was a bird strike incident on both engines that
| maybe having 4 engines [...]
|
| It's pretty clear what the guy is inquiring about.
|
| Speaking as someone without aerospace engineering or GA
| pilot experience. My only relevant experience here is
| being able to read.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _My only relevant experience here is being able to
| read_
|
| Double bird strikes are "independent powerplant
| failures."
| notahacker wrote:
| Current speculation around the raising of flaps suggests
| that independent engine failures _weren 't_ the cause.
| Proper investigation with access to better data than
| grainy video will tell us if that is the case and why.
|
| "4 smaller but equally efficient engines" feels like a
| unicorn though (we'll probably get to the point in future
| where four large engines are superior in efficiency to
| two of _today 's_ engines, but two large engines to that
| latest design will still be more efficient than four
| smaller ones...)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _" 4 smaller but equally efficient engines" feels like
| a unicorn_
|
| With turbines, yes, for fundamental reasons. With
| electric motors, on the other hand, perhaps not, though
| not particularly relevant to a long-haul route like AMD-
| LON.
| notahacker wrote:
| True. Also the electric/turboprop propulsion compromises
| like Heart Aerospace's that trade off the limitations of
| the respective powerplants by fitting pairs of both. But
| that's a different use case...
|
| (I get to write about arrayed space thrusters in the day
| job too, but again, fundamentally different physics and
| goals...)
| klausa wrote:
| I am happy to acknowledge I had a completely wrong knee-
| jerk reaction to your phrasing, and incorrectly assumed
| your "One has to wonder..." was meant as a suggestion of
| a solution, instead of instance of thinking out loud!
|
| Apologies!
| aceofspades19 wrote:
| It's not only that engines have gotten more efficient and
| powerful, its that they have also increased the
| reliability. The other issue is that 4 engines share
| almost all of the failure modes that 2 engines do. If you
| have 2 engines that fail that are on opposite sides of
| the aircraft, having 2 others isn't going to help as its
| likely a system failure in the aircraft or a fault in
| that particular model of the engine that could affect all
| of them. For example, if you run of fuel or have a
| failure in the fuel delivery system, it's not going to
| matter if you have 2, 4 or more engines. The mistake is
| thinking the probability of a 4 engine failure is
| significantly less than 2 engine failure for all types of
| failures.
| ta20240528 wrote:
| > So I was wondering what if current plane designs had 4
| smaller but equally as efficient engines instead of 2.
|
| Smaller turbofan engines are less efficient than larger
| ones. This is because they have a lower bypass ratio -
| thrust generated by turning the big fan over the thrust
| generated by combustion.
|
| So expect even bigger engines.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| >4 smaller but equally as efficient engines
|
| Larger jet engines are more fuel efficient than smaller
| ones, because larger diameters allow for more bypass air
| and therefore more fuel efficiency [1]. It is a function
| of size and a lot of the engineering goes into materials
| and designs to be able to increase size and maintain
| strength. So you simply can't make 4 engines that are as
| efficient as 2 large ones, and that is compounded by the
| significant additional weight (and drag) of the
| duplicated engine parts and mounting structures.
|
| >if some of those can be avoided by having 4 engines for
| commercial aircraft, its a worthwhile idea to explore
|
| Everything comes with tradeoffs. Adding more engines mean
| more complexity, more maintenance, more chance of single
| engine failures, etc. You don't want to introduce more
| failure modes than what you are trying to fix. The move
| to two engines for large aircraft and the evolution of
| ETOPS (Extended Twin-engine Operational Performance
| Standards) involved a lot of people considering a lot of
| scenarios. I can guarantee the "why not 4 engines"
| question has been studied extensively.
|
| [1] https://simpleflying.com/why-do-jet-engines-keep-
| getting-lar...
| fredoralive wrote:
| In the 1980s a British Airways 747 flew through volcanic ash
| and lost all four engines. So just having more engines may
| not always be the solution, as in suitably unlikely
| circumstances you can still lose all of them.
|
| (In that case they were at cruising altitude, so had time to
| handle the situation and relight the engines).
| arethuza wrote:
| _" Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We
| have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are
| doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you
| are not in too much distress."_
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_009
| ho_schi wrote:
| It depends on the situation. Redundancy and additional
| power increase margins. More for the sake of more isn't
| necessary helping.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_ewa7R20MA
|
| Lufthansa 747-8 after engine failure:
| *We're not an emergency.*
|
| It depends on what is causing the failure and how situation
| evolves. Let us take British Airways Flight 009 as example,
| the wiki says that all engines failed, all engines were
| restarted and engine number 2 surged again and was finally
| shut down. So even this awkward situation was relaxed a bit
| by the additional safety margin.
|
| Most airlines avoid nowadays the invest into maintenance of
| four engines airliners. Others have prefer the additional
| transport capacity and margins. Lufthansa has it's own
| maintenance branch "Lufthansa Technik" and doesn't need to
| handle extra costs. Emirates needs the huge capacities of
| the A380.
|
| PS: The 747 can and does - if necessary - ferry flights
| without passengers and only three engines. Not possible
| with twin engine planes.
| bartread wrote:
| Yeah, I think I might wait for the MentourPilot take on this
| one. I can't see any benefit in speculating.
|
| Horrifying that it came down in a residential area with almost
| all its fuel still on board though. The aftermath is beyond
| belief.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| Yes. Unfortunately this year alone will give him quite a
| backlog. Every month there's been a couple of disasters or
| near disasters and there's no apparent connection between any
| of them.
| bartread wrote:
| I haven't by any means been keeping count but it does feel
| like there have been a lot more incidents that usual this
| year, and certainly a lot more fatalities.
|
| What I can't work out whether that's recency bias, or
| because I've been watching a lot of MentourPilot with our
| daughters so I'm simply more attuned to this kind of news,
| or if there really are more of them.
|
| I certainly don't know if the rate of incidents per
| passenger mile flown is higher than usual.
| jordanb wrote:
| Probably chickens coming home to roost on the 2000s-era
| "flying is ultra-safe now, time to deregulate, disinvest,
| and capture value from efficiencies"
| gedy wrote:
| Deregulation has been a thing for 40-50 years
| wat10000 wrote:
| DCA was good old-fashioned complacency and normalization
| of deviance. Aside from that, this year has been
| unremarkable in aviation safety.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| There were enough that he made a video discussing it.
| Maybe because they've been particularly high profile
| incidents.
|
| Here's a list of plane crashes. https://en.m.wikipedia.or
| g/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incide...
| quantumfissure wrote:
| No, it's not worse. If you look through the list of
| deadly plane accidents, the last year has been average (4
| vs. 3 avg).
|
| Since the deadly DCA collision in January, there are
| things making the news now that would never have in the
| past, so it seems like it's worse. Especially if the
| plane has "Boeing" written on the side. For example,
| hitting animals, tire blowouts, or ground equipment
| bumping into planes, which grounds them for inspection.
| When I worked for a major airline, those things are all
| actually pretty common and happen everywhere, all the
| time.
|
| It's just a method used to stoke fear and feed clicks.
|
| People find the most minute thing to complain about.
| Recently, there was an article about the antiquated FAA
| system using floppies. While the system is old and
| showing it's cracks, saying it uses floppies just makes
| it sound worse then it is. As of 2020, our mx crew were
| still plugging a Windows 98 laptop with DOS into Embraers
| and Bombardier Dash8s, and used floppies in Boeings (no
| Airbus or ATRs in our fleet for comparison).
| chucksmash wrote:
| Maybe globally it's an average year but the DCA crash
| alone makes it an extraordinary year in US commercial
| aviation.
|
| Not all crashes are created equal. A 10 person Cessna
| disappearing near Nome, Alaska !== mid-air collision
| above the Potomac.
|
| If you're looking at US news sources, I don't think you
| need to resort to clickbait and fearmongering to justify
| the increased focus.
| quantumfissure wrote:
| There is a media difference though since the DCA crash.
| Military and small planes (<10 PAX) crash all the time.
| We just never heard about it until after January. My
| point is the same, media sees crash, tries to drive
| clickage.
|
| On a personal level, I know three people that have died
| in small plane crashes in the Alaska wilderness in the
| last 15 years, which is so common that it didn't even get
| on local news. I have acquaintances that were in involved
| in two others elsewhere over the last few years. Small
| planes are unbelievably dangerous. Commercial jets, not
| so much.
| fhdkweig wrote:
| > My point is the same, media sees crash, tries to drive
| clickage.
|
| In 2012, in a rush to break the news, WGN 9 in Chicago
| mistook the set of Chicago Fire tv show for a real crash.
|
| https://q1057.com/news-anchor-mistakes-movie-set-for-
| plane-c...
|
| https://metro.co.uk/2012/12/01/plane-crash-telly-as-
| chicago-...
| sokoloff wrote:
| Small planes are about twice as safe per mile as
| motorcycles, all-cause to all-cause.
|
| Now, there's planes running out of fuel and drunk driving
| on cycles that some operators might choose to exclude
| from their own risk calculations, but it's a little over
| one order of magnitude riskier than cars.
|
| Whether that's unbelievably dangerous is up to personal
| judgment.
| lupusreal wrote:
| > _Military and small planes ( <10 PAX) crash all the
| time. We just never heard about it until after January._
|
| We don't hear about military jet crashes unless they're
| F-35s. The controversial jet gets coverage because it
| gets eyeballs from people satisfying their confirmation
| bias. These are never put into context of course.
|
| > _The F-16 has been involved in over 670 hull-loss
| accidents as of January 2020.[312][313]_
|
| Fighter jets are simply dangerous, period. They're meant
| to be flown right at the bleeding edge, accidents are
| inevitable. But every time an F-35 crashes, the media
| makes a big deal out of it and idiots see that as
| confirmation of their belief that the F-35 is bad. Even
| if the F-35 is bad, it crashing sometimes wouldn't be
| evidence of that. Occasional crashes are just what
| happens when fighter jets get flown a lot. It's going to
| happen whether the jet is good or bad.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Having flown tactical jets off an aircraft carrier into
| Afghanistan . . . you seem to be conflating "dangerous"
| with "inherently unforgiving." Flying jets in combat
| against a peer foe is dangerous. Flying them in peacetime
| is inherently unforgiving. "Dangerous" occurs when I as
| an aviator can be taken out by something not under my
| control or that of my pilot or fellow aircrew.
|
| The reason verbiage matters is because many people fear
| flying because they look at it as some kind of gamble as
| opposed to something where risks can be mitigated down
| quite a bit by the act of being safety-conscious. Even
| flying multi-plane low-levels or opposed large force
| exercises are not "dangerous" per se, so long as everyone
| plays by the rules and takes it seriously. Civil aviation
| is so safe because of a culture of making it safe.
| prmph wrote:
| Yep, looks like the return of regular airline crashes. The
| 2010s will probably be the apogee of airline safety for
| some time to come.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Why though? What's changing? With all the relevant data
| this would probably be a good problem for an LLM to
| "ponder".
| apples_oranges wrote:
| I know it's not his fault, hate the player not the game, but
| he will make what off this crash (and his analysis ofc)?
| $10k?
|
| I remember long ago he said he would not report on crashes
| but that's what people want so no blame..
| sofixa wrote:
| Most of his videos are on crashes. He has said he won't
| _speculate_ on active investigations, but has already done
| videos on what is known, and preliminary reports.
| apples_oranges wrote:
| No, pretty sure long long ago before he was big, he said
| he won't do crashes period. But doesn't matter, and he
| can change his mind as he pleases.
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| Some people have a spine and still get hate by braindead
| zombies.
| sofixa wrote:
| You're either misremembering or misunderstood something,
| or I'm not understanding what you mean, because Mentour
| Pilot literally has a channel with nothing but air crash
| investigation videos: https://youtube.com/@mentourpilot
|
| He has one of the best air crash investigation
| journalists, Kyra Dempsey (aka Admiral Cloudberg) as one
| of the writers on the channel.
|
| They already have a YouTube Short listing the facts of
| the crash, and also have a longer video about the Jeju
| one. Only the facts, no speculation - they're waiting for
| the preliminary or even final report to make a full in
| depth video on it.
| 14 wrote:
| I hope he makes $20k. Or more. I enjoy his content and the
| insight he brings. Also many people make money from the
| tragedy of others. Morticians, coffin builders, clean up
| crews, construction workers, concrete companies...I could
| probably come up with 100 more examples. Just because their
| work is from the result of something tragic doesn't mean it
| is any less important.
| bartread wrote:
| Being completely frank he does a very good thing. He's
| got through to our eldest about how important it is to do
| things correctly, and be systematic and detail oriented,
| in a way that her mum and I have really struggled to.
|
| The irony of it is that a couple of months back I was sat
| in the living room watching MentourPilot, she came in and
| asked what I was watching, said "Ugh, boring!" Then she
| sat down and started playing on our Switch... and then
| she just got sucked in to the episode, and is now
| completely obsessed with watching MentourPilot. She often
| knows what's gone wrong and what the pilots should have
| done instead before he even explains it.
|
| So the guy's all right with me and absolutely welcome to
| make as much money as he can: he's a _great_ educator.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| You're upset that he's benefiting by providing an expert
| perspective on a topic you're interested in?
|
| Boy, you must be upset about pretty much everything on the
| internet. Except for hn. Paul Graham just runs this site
| out of his own benevolence, nothing else.
| pixl97 wrote:
| What do you think the big media outlets make on crashes?
| And they suck putting all kinds of unwarranted speculation
| and bullshit on the airwaves.
|
| Media isn't free, especially well produced media that's
| taken it's time to research.
| rectang wrote:
| I find MentourPilot's consultant persona grating and avoid
| his content, but in terms of sensationalism there are far
| worse.
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| He is actually really good. By far the best on YouTube.
| The quality is so high (because it's based on technical
| reports), you can learn something from it as a
| professional engineer.
|
| I really don't know what you are talking about.
| rectang wrote:
| MentourPilot is not exactly the only YouTuber going off
| of actual technical reports, and I did not question his
| accuracy -- I said I find him "grating". I'd rather watch
| old Mayday episodes than MentourPilot -- Greg Feith, for
| one, is a great communicator. John Cox, too.
| okdood64 wrote:
| blancolirio on YT gives more timely but objective (i.e.,
| tries to stick to the latest facts) takes on aviation
| incidents. There will be a fair bit of speculation still...
| progbits wrote:
| He made a quick video on this one, but just listing
| questions we don't have answers to yet, and warning that
| there will be plenty of speculation. I expect he will have
| several follow ups as more facts come up.
| dylan604 wrote:
| 9/11 showed us the damages of a plane crash with a full load
| of fuel can do and goes to show why dumping fuel is part of
| the procedures when planes are coming inf for a landing under
| "strained" conditions.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Fuel dumping is overwhelmingly to prevent or minimize an
| overweight landing and subsequent brake/tire overheating
| and inspections. It's got not much to do with minimizing
| fuel-fed fire after impact.
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| 100% agreed on MentourPilot. He was the only one to not try
| to make money on jejuair speculation for example.
|
| Also as an engineer you can actually learn a lot about
| technical and social failures.
| __m wrote:
| Compulsive debuggers, probably not uncommon here
| tusim wrote:
| I've seen so many speculations from blurry video, spotty adsb
| data en straight up racism about this crash.
| blitzar wrote:
| Pro tip from a lifelong life enthusiast: if its breaking news,
| wait one week - first-week speculation isn't just unproductive,
| it's often counterproductive.
|
| Flick through last weeks newspaper if you need reassurance.
| jen729w wrote:
| Just read The Economist. Only comes out weekly!
| Litost wrote:
| Similarly The Guardian has a weekly publication -
| https://support.theguardian.com/uk/subscribe/weekly
|
| Unfortunately it doesn't appear to have a digital option?
| treetalker wrote:
| I can access a digital Guardian Weekly through my public
| library's online magazines (Hoopla or Libby or some
| such).
| Litost wrote:
| Thanks, that's good to know.
|
| And I've just seen that you CAN get The Guardian Weekly
| digital subscription here, free if you've got a print
| subscription? Though obviously I'm wondering why the
| Guardian don't advertise this?
|
| https://theguardianweekly.pressreader.com/
| xdennis wrote:
| I used to do that too, but the Rittenhouse incident was the
| final straw for me. I remember reading in the magazine that
| he "shot into the crowd", but by that point I had already
| watched the video analysis on the New York Times's YouTube
| channel which showed that he only shot at people who
| attacked him. That was what the jury agreed with as well.
|
| In the end, I think the most accurate place to get your
| news from is a history book.
| andrepd wrote:
| So one inaccurate report about one event and you swore
| off "The Media" forever? Doesn't seem very wise.
| lupusreal wrote:
| "Final straw". One straw alone won't break a camel, will
| it?
| yohannparis wrote:
| Yep, I subscribe to the Le Monde weekly, 10 printed pages
| newspaper delivered home. Enough to know what's what and
| done.
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| Considering the amount of cash and/or subsidies that Le
| Monde has received in the last 30 years from the French
| government, you may as well read the Pravda. Nobody bites
| the hand that feeds them.
| orwin wrote:
| I don't think it received anything? Besides a VAT of 3%?
| But it is the voice of it's 3 owners.
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| You can read all about it here https://fr.wikipedia.org/w
| iki/Aides_%C3%A0_la_presse_en_Fran... if you want and if
| you understand French.
|
| Basically the French new outlets are some of the most
| subsidized on the planet.
|
| Just to give you some quick figures, in 2010, the French
| government gave news outlets 1.8B euros in subsidies and
| in 2012 another 1.2B euros. There is no mention of the
| subsidies in the years after that but there is no reason
| to think that these would have shrunk significantly.
|
| That's not even mentioning the special tax breaks that
| journalists get and the fact that most news outlets are
| staffed by union members.
|
| Knowing that most unions are leaning left politically, it
| is fair to say that the coverage of the news by these
| outlets will be tainted by their political ideology. It's
| just human nature.
|
| All of this to say that in light of all this, it is best
| to treat any French news outlet as basically an arm of
| the government that will never go against the interests
| of the their real owners, the politicians, unions and the
| billionaires.
|
| Le Monde is but one of these outlets but nevertheless
| they take the money just like the other ones.
| andrepd wrote:
| Reading one source of news only, especially one with such
| marked bias, is bound to leave you with a limited
| worldview. Consult instead a variety of sources.
| ChrisGreenHeur wrote:
| It's also possible to just not read news altogether.
| VladVladikoff wrote:
| Best decision I've ever made. It's honestly so exhausting
| reading news regularly.
| psyclobe wrote:
| Amen.
| alwa wrote:
| Like so many addictive habits, while you're in it day to
| day, it feels so... _important_ ... and when you're
| out... it doesn't even make sense that complete truth
| could be fully knowable in the moment.
|
| Most consequential decisions are made, or built up to,
| over a long time. Sure, _somebody_ has to call moment-to-
| moment balls and strikes, but if that's not literally
| you, your weight in the world might be better applied in
| slower, quieter, subtler places.
|
| Am I morbidly curious about a plane crash? How could I
| not be? But the NTSB didn't earn the credibility they
| have by parachuting in day-of and shooting from the hip.
| If anything, their processes provide discipline _against_
| first impressions blinding them to true causes.
|
| For those who haven't encountered Admiral Cloudberg, this
| is a good opportunity:
| https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/
| lupusreal wrote:
| Good way to cure a news addiction: Read news from years
| ago, see how much of it was actually accurate and
| meaningful in retrospect.
| gedy wrote:
| Yes, I remember scrolling through an archive of Newsweek
| covers over the years, and realizing how much of it was
| just pure hype or inconsequential.
| chasd00 wrote:
| years ago i wanted to make a site where you could log
| promises/predictions made in news media and then get a
| reminder to come back and check if it actually happened.
| This would be useful for all the doom and gloom headlines
| and predictions, especially economic ones.
| garciasn wrote:
| I don't recommend this; instead, I recommend reading
| factual reporting, not 'analysis' which often comes with
| inherent political bent/bias.
| drcongo wrote:
| Why? I went news cold turkey about 6 years ago and I'm
| very happy with that decision.
| garciasn wrote:
| Why? Because I personally believe those who are not
| regularly informed are exacerbating the problem in why
| the electorate makes the decisions it does.
| bmitch2112 wrote:
| If you don't read the newspapers, you are uniformed. If
| you do read them, you are misinformed.
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| My girlfriend says she doesn't trust the media, but she
| has to follow it to know what they're lying to us about.
| I've pointed out that the problem goes deeper than just
| whether they tell truth or lies. They don't just tell you
| what to think; they tell you what you're even supposed to
| be thinking about, and by omission what you shouldn't be
| thinking about. You can take the opposite position on
| every issue to the one they're pushing, but you're still
| letting them frame the window of what you are and aren't
| thinking and forming opinions about.
|
| The only way to take that control away from them is to
| cut the primary "news" sources out of your life entirely.
| I still hear about important events from people around
| me, and I can see what people are hyperventilating about
| at forums like this, which is more than enough to know
| what the media is hyping each day and why.
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| She definitely has a point here. The problem is that a
| democracy kind of needs the media and a public
| discussion.
|
| How do you decide to vote if you completey go out of the
| loop?
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| That's the funny thing, I'm not out of the loop. When
| friends bring up current issues that matter, I'm
| generally better informed than they are, but I'm clueless
| if they bring up the latest controversial TV show or
| whatever is today's outrage narrative that will be
| replaced by the next outrage narrative tomorrow.
|
| It turns out that by letting the people around me sort of
| curate the "news," and reading thinkers who write about
| bigger topics rather than what's in the headlines, I wind
| up with a pretty good filtered news feed.
| 119 wrote:
| Which thinkers do you read?
| vel0city wrote:
| > How do you decide to vote if you completey go out of
| the loop?
|
| I tend to stay pretty well informed without watching
| cable news or constantly reading political gossip on
| social media. When I hear things like "the Supreme Court
| issued an opinion today..." I go read the opinion. When I
| hear "Trump signed an executive order saying..." I go
| read the executive order. When I'm talking with people
| about inflation, I go look up the BLS data among other
| things. If people are talking about what's actually
| happening on the ground some place, I will end up having
| to find some reports reporting things and ultimately have
| to weigh the fact they're choosing where to point their
| cameras to my understanding of what is actually true.
|
| Some of these things are hard, like the "big beautiful
| bill" is 1,116 pages long. I'll jump to the things people
| around me are talking about, like work requirements for
| Medicaid and SNAP, and read those sections. I might go
| look up some direct commentary from trusted sources about
| it for deeper analysis, and probably try and find some
| real statistics to compare.
|
| We have so much actual real data and original sources to
| go read, I don't need someone else to tell me what they
| think of it for me to have an opinion.
| jfinnery wrote:
| You could spend the time you'd have spent reading the
| news instead reading actual books on history, poli sci
| and political philosophy, ethics, economics, et c., and
| then figure out who the right person to vote for is and
| what the right votes on various issues are in like 30
| minutes of search-n-skim per election.
|
| This pattern would result in a far better-informed voter
| than one who diligently follows the news all the time but
| doesn't read many books. The amount of news you need to
| read to make informed decisions at the ballot box is
| usually tiny, if you have the background to understand
| the news--and if you don't, consuming more news won't
| help much with that. Meanwhile, it takes a _ton_ of close
| book-reading before you start to see diminishing returns
| on that front.
| garciasn wrote:
| I have a BA in history and a MPA in public
| administration. I have already done a ton of that work:
| research, academic analysis/writing, and understanding. I
| agree these things are INCREDIBLY important to have a
| great foundational understanding of how the world
| works/worked; however, understanding current events is
| JUST AS IMPORTANT.
|
| But; I'm done arguing w/you as it's clear your opinion
| will remain unchanged regardless of any evidence or
| opinion to the contrary.
| toast0 wrote:
| Even if news reading informs an electorate, there's no
| need to be informed constantly when I only have limited
| opportunities to vote.
|
| When an election happens, I can do a search of news on
| the candidates, and for discussions of the other issues
| put to the voters. In the meantime, by avoiding news, I
| can save a lot of distress about news that I can't change
| and doesn't have an immediate effect on me. (Nobody in
| this thread, including me, is great at avoiding news, me
| included... really important events tend to bubble up
| anyway, and all of us clicked into a discussion of an
| event that's probably not personally relevant)
|
| It'd be different if a cat delivered tomorrow's paper to
| my door; I might not like it, but I'd have a duty to read
| that paper and try to make right what once went wrong.
| LanceH wrote:
| Not to be rude, but why should we care what you believe?
|
| If there were a problem with holes being dug in the city
| people are not exacerbating the problem if they choose to
| just not dig holes.
|
| Not everyone needs to be informed an act on whatever it
| is that others think is important. This belief really
| forms the backbone of the current, "if you're not with
| us, you're against us" mentality.
|
| Whatever the cause is, it's entirely possible to just
| treat people decently without caring about who or what
| they are. That's where we should be encouraging people to
| get to, not demanding they jump into action.
| drcongo wrote:
| I totally get that, and agree to a degree. For me
| personally though, the news industry has become
| entertainment - TV news is hyperbolic, 24 hour _breaking
| news_ for every story, newspapers (at least here in the
| UK) are little more than a propaganda outlet for the
| views of the billionaire owner where every story is
| designed to make people angry and point the blame at
| someone, usually immigrants. For years I listened to BBC
| Radio 4 's Today Programme every single morning, until I
| realised that none of what they were telling me was
| actually news. You'd be amazed at how many stories
| started with the words "Ministers are today expected to
| announce..." - this isn't news, it hasn't happened yet.
| This is government PR. If you haven't read it already, I
| _highly_ recommend Flat Earth News by Nick Davies [0] -
| it 's incredibly eye opening. Reading it now, 11 years
| later, is even more eye opening - everything he writes
| about in there is now magnified ten fold.
|
| Going cold turkey from the "news" doesn't make me any
| less informed about what is happening in the world, if
| anything it has made me more informed as I'm no longer
| just a vessel filling my brain with whatever some
| billionaire wants me to believe.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_News_%28book%29
| StefanBatory wrote:
| Because not everyone is privileged enough to be able to
| ignore news.
| nh23423fefe wrote:
| shame doesnt work anymore
| dogleash wrote:
| Your attempt at an irritated jab is just the doomscroll
| addiction talking.
|
| Even for people that read news out of necessity, it can
| be curtailed down to only the relevant topics and the
| dryer outlets. I am one of those people, and the need to
| stay up to date doesn't justify the junkfood.
| SirMaster wrote:
| Same. I have never really followed the news. Everyone
| always seems to be upset by something in the news.
| Meanwhile I'm happy as a clam all the time and just have
| all my time to focus on myself and doing what I want and
| like.
| roywiggins wrote:
| To the contrary, I find analysis very helpful when it's
| of the "is this important; is this unusual; how does it
| fit in with previous expectations" variety. Raw headlines
| and factual day-to-day reporting are often kind of bad at
| that.
| cantor_S_drug wrote:
| Read pro and anti analysis if possible. Then decide for
| yourself which makes sense.
| ufmace wrote:
| Even that isn't enough. Much of the bias nowadays comes
| in which specific facts and events you report, and which
| you ignore.
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| Totally agreed.
|
| I stopped reading/watching/listening to the news about 2
| years ago and I am blissfully unaware of what is going on
| in the world. I read hacker news every once in a while and
| even comment on some of the stories shown here but I select
| very strictly the topics I interact with.
|
| News organizations these days are all pushing an agenda.
| Whether it is pro [insert-topic-of-choice-here] or against
| [insert-topic-of-choice-here] and that irks me when they
| represent themselves as impartial and unbiased.
|
| If I want to read some propaganda, I know where to find it.
| bigbuppo wrote:
| The concept of unbiased news is a very recent invention.
| Before that all news was partisan.
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| I understand but in the past you probably did not have
| much of a choice. You read the newspaper your parents
| read or you listened to the same radio programs and watch
| the same TV channels so the bias was not necessarily
| apparent.
|
| Nowadays, we know exactly which outlets are leaning right
| or left, there is clearly no doubt about.
|
| Furthermore, I would argue that the news outlets
| squandered the last bit of credibility they had during
| the COVID period when they silenced views that were not
| deemed acceptable at the time.
|
| Finally a lot of news outlets are in some parts funded by
| the very same governments that they are supposed to be
| reporting on and keep in check. How can you do your job
| properly without any bias if the person you are about to
| write about/criticize is the one who signs your paycheck?
|
| The answer is that you don't.
| jjude wrote:
| If you don't read news, you are uninformed. If you read
| news, you are misinformed
| larrled wrote:
| I"m reformed. I reread hn.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| LOL. Guilty also.
|
| Regarding the original sentiment though, uninformed vs
| misinformed...
|
| Isn't this basically just good old signal processing? We
| either don't have enough signal, or we're saturated with
| noise. Economic feedback loops keep the news noise at a
| saturated level; we don't seem to be able to collectively
| agree or incentivize having a spot of information
| spectrum that has a decent discernible signal.
|
| The "free" press is no more free than it was 300 years
| ago. Then it was owned by despotic interests. Today, it
| is owned by need to make money.
| iwontberude wrote:
| I only read the comments.
| coredog64 wrote:
| I especially liked the story last week highlighting that wet
| streets cause rain.
| nindalf wrote:
| Pro tip from an absolute rando: don't bother with any source
| of breaking news. Read a weekly paper that summarises the
| important stuff.
|
| If something is truly pressing, you'll hear about it from
| friends or coworkers.
| roywiggins wrote:
| Unfortunately for everyone's brains, this turned out to
| basically not be true with COVID- only real news fans (or
| people with expertise in the relevant science, but there
| are way less of those) were remotely aware that offices
| probably weren't going to be closed for only two weeks[0].
| If you followed the news closely you stocked up on toilet
| paper when there were runs on it in Hong Kong, before there
| were runs on it where you were, etc. But if you only got
| news from the office water-cooler you'd have been none the
| wiser.
|
| This is one of those exceptions that prove the rule though,
| I think.
|
| [0] I had this conversation with people multiple times so
| it must have been common
| lxgr wrote:
| If nobody followed the news or social media, there
| wouldn't have been runs on toilet paper to begin with, as
| there never was a shortage to begin with and it was all
| just mass hysteria.
| roywiggins wrote:
| It was never clear to me, but at least part of it was
| supposedly due to everyone pooping at home using consumer
| TP instead of at the office, using commercially packaged
| TP (two-ply, giant rolls for big dispensers). And that
| sudden shift started to empty shelves. If people had
| stocked up over a period of time, the empty-shelves
| situation that produced the fear probably wouldn't have
| happened.
|
| Of course in practice there really was plenty of it to go
| around, dollar stores seemed to be the most flexible at
| navigating the supply chain derangement and if you didn't
| mind buying it by the roll, it was never really hard to
| find.
|
| Also- you don't need to follow the news for there to be a
| panic, empty shelves will do that all on their own.
| Everyone deciding to stock up a little on everything was
| enough to deplete shelves, people walking in after saw
| empty shelves and stocked up more, etc. I don't think
| most people were following the "omg supply chain" news,
| they just saw depleted shelves.
| timr wrote:
| Yeah, the deep irony of the GP comment is that, had all
| of these supposedly knowledgable people just _read the
| original report from the WHO_ (~early 2020), they 'd have
| realized many things about the virus (such as the
| extremely skewed age distribution of the seriously ill)
| that would have greatly mitigated the overall panic. It
| literally took _years_ for the chattering class in
| medicine to understand basic information that was
| available at the beginning of the pandemic.
|
| COVID was a perfect case study of mass hysteria, and how
| you can't even trust "the experts" in these situations,
| because the "experts" you hear from early on are also
| generally the ones who are the most willing to spout pure
| speculation for attention. Humans are gonna human, and a
| background in science doesn't change that fact.
| roywiggins wrote:
| A million Americans did die of it, the lost QALYs was...
| a lot. A lot of people died who had more than a decade,
| actuarially. That's a big deal.
|
| But it doesn't matter for what I'm saying: paying too
| much attention to the news about a weird new virus from
| China would have clued a person in that something big
| might be coming, on whatever dimension you care to
| measure it.
| yurodivuie wrote:
| Unfortunately, we do not live in the best of all possible
| worlds. One must plan for both the actual threat and the
| response to the perceived threat.
| platevoltage wrote:
| I'll never understand why bidets are so niche in the USA
| especially after there are TP shortages every couple of
| years.
|
| Not to mention how gross cleaning yourself with dry
| tissue is.
| officeplant wrote:
| That was pure panic. I live in the gulf coast. Anytime
| there is a minor chance we are getting hit by a hurricane
| people panic buy and suddenly there isn't any water on
| the shelves anymore. You'll see average folks with 20
| cases of water being shoved in their massive SUVs for a
| family of 3.
| roywiggins wrote:
| Sure. However, I bought a large pack of toilet paper when
| I saw headlines about hoarding in HK, before the shelves
| began to dwindle here, and thus dodged the whole thing.
| That it was basically panic is neither here nor there:
| paying too close attention to far-off news did actually
| pay off in a tiny way.
| voxadam wrote:
| Sam Rogers: You are panicking.
|
| John Tuld: If you're first out the door, that's not
| called panicking.
|
| --Margin Call (2011)
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| TP shortages in Hong Kong were rational, based on an
| expectation of bulk shipping issues. Stocking up in North
| America based on shortages in Hong Kong was idiotic. If
| there are shortages of TP in Hong Kong that means there
| would be a surplus of TP in North America, since North
| America is where the pulp for most TP is made.
| roywiggins wrote:
| Sure, probably. It still helped me dodge the panic that
| set in a couple weeks later though. Sometimes midwit
| thought works. I wasn't stocking a Scrooge McDuck room
| full of the stuff. I think it was when I saw stories of
| hoarding spread to Australia that I realized that maybe
| this it was going to have legs, rationally or not.
| atuladhar wrote:
| "The Week" is a great magazine for this purpose.
| LostMyLogin wrote:
| Suggestions for some sources to read? I know the Economist,
| anything else others would recommend?
| nindalf wrote:
| Economist for me. I don't know of any other sources that
| can reach the same level.
| newhope1978 wrote:
| of what, bias?
| andrepd wrote:
| Well you're missing out and stunting your own worldview
| if you stick to only one source of information
| (regardless of which it is).
| ijidak wrote:
| What do you read? I'm an economist reader too for weekly
| news.
|
| Would love other sources, but it's hard to find anything
| with similar depth and a similar lack of sensational-
| ization found in most news.
|
| Edit: Oh, and global reach. The economist covers earth in
| almost equal detail for every region. Not quite equal of
| course, but darn close compared to most outlets.
| marsa wrote:
| https://newlinesmag.com/ has been a favorite of mine
| lately if you wanna give that a try, it's got global
| coverage and there's always something interesting to read
| dhruvrajvanshi wrote:
| I think WSJ is a good complement to the Economist. They
| have good, unsensationalized coverage of the facts. I
| ignore their opinion columns as they don't seem very
| serious.
| celticninja wrote:
| That's just another Murdoch rag, I wouldn't wipe my arse
| with it. Better no news than his news. You aren't getting
| any sort of counterpoint you are getting whatever
| supports his world view.
| TeaBrain wrote:
| As they said, you can skip the opinion columns.
| celticninja wrote:
| You think the opinion pages are the only place he pushes
| his agenda? The very stories they report are selected to
| further the narrative he wants. That's why apologies and
| retractions are always tiny.
| dhruvrajvanshi wrote:
| With all due respect, have you read it regularly?
|
| In my experience, WSJ just reports what happened and who
| said what in a very dry way.
|
| My impression is that their news section provides a very
| anti Republican party view. Note that this is my
| impression, not the paper's stance. They don't really
| take any, apart from the opinion section, which I ignore.
| The opinion section has a massive pro republican bent.
|
| > Lying by omission
|
| I'll admit, I might have a blind spot here because I'm
| only reading 2 newspapers. That being said, I'm not sure
| of any stories reported by the other news outlets which
| were ignored/downplayed by WSJ.
|
| > apologies and retractions
|
| Happen when they happen. I remember a few per month. But
| since they're so dry, there's very little scope for major
| corrections. If they say, "this guy said that", there's
| very little to correct there. Occasionally, they mis-
| paraphrase someone and have to correct their report. Most
| sound like honest mistakes to me.
|
| EDIT:
|
| > You aren't getting any sort of counterpoint you are
| getting whatever supports his world view.
|
| Fair enough, but you mostly don't get any points to
| counter in the first place. Only plain dry facts. I go to
| the Economist for opinions and counter opinions. (*side
| note, the Economist should publish more counter opinions
| IMO)
| amit9gupta wrote:
| I had been a Economist subscriber for almost 20 years.
| But then gradually I realized that their reporting on
| some issues are extremely biased and they conveniently
| skip reporting some facts to match their intended
| narrative and lead the reader to distorted conclusions.
| So I would assume they would be doing the same with other
| topics as well. I did not renew my subscription.
| gopher_space wrote:
| Christian Science Monitor, Mother Jones.
| Swizec wrote:
| I really like the Economist as a source of weekly news.
|
| Somehow I've ended up primarily reading their daily recap
| in the app. They already have a full article on this
| crash. That usually means it'll be in the magazine next
| week.
| kanbankaren wrote:
| The Economist?
|
| I just unsubscribed from the digital edition. A
| neoliberal and globalization bias in overall tone.
| kunzhi wrote:
| They've always been upfront about their bias, in no way
| are they trying to hide it.
|
| Way back when I was in college 20 years ago they ran a
| very funny article poking fun at all the PhD's doing
| "deconstruction" on The Economist. Like super post-
| modernist fluff. I could tell the writer had a great time
| responding to it.
|
| Their punchline: "so there you have it - a newspaper to
| make you feel good about tomorrow by promoting capitalism
| today!"
| elmolino89 wrote:
| I have gave up on E. once they supported GWB over Gore. I
| can barely understand over the top devotion to
| neoliberalism and deregulation. But the shortcomings of
| GWB were sticking out in the campaign, so closing the
| eyes and singing "la la liberalism" was way too much for
| me.
| dhruvrajvanshi wrote:
| I also read the Economist. Other than that, Wall Street
| Journal is quite good at purely factual, unopinionated
| coverage. Note that their Opinion section is heavily
| biased towards the American right, but I mostly ignore
| it. It's clearly labeled as Opinion.
|
| Between the Economist and WSJ, I get a good overview of
| opinions and facts.
| divan wrote:
| https://legiblenews.com
| Tepix wrote:
| Le Monde Diplomatique
|
| https://mondediplo.com/
|
| Available in many languages
| abbadadda wrote:
| Any background on funding sources/ongoing sources of
| revenue/ownership?
| Chico75 wrote:
| > The publication is 51% owned by Le Monde diplomatique
| SA, a subsidiary company of Le Monde, from which it
| remains editorially independent.
|
| Le Monde is owned by a French billionaire:
| https://www.alliancemagazine.org/blog/democracy-in-
| france-de...
| rsync wrote:
| I really enjoy the Monocle "Globalist" podcast which is
| well-produced, of global range, and a welcome departure
| from the npr/kqed bubble I was immersed in.
|
| It comes out daily.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| Tangle
|
| https://www.readtangle.com/
| ant6n wrote:
| The problem is, they often assume you already read the news
| and don't say what happen just provide the analysis without
| context.
|
| Heck, Spiegel does that with news on the same day. You get
| some background article without starting with the facts of
| what happened, as if everybody reads the news every two
| hours.
| nindalf wrote:
| This is why I like the Economist. They don't assume the
| reader has background knowledge.
| kps wrote:
| From the television era: Don't watch news channels;
| _important_ news will be on _all_ the channels.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Then you're only getting things important to viewership.
| Nobody's putting an economically critical trade deal on
| all the channels, or a genocide in Yemen. But Princess
| Diana dying, that's gonna get coverage.
| 6LLvveMx2koXfwn wrote:
| Especially as she's supposed to have died 28 years ago.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Especially as she 's supposed to have died 28 years
| ago_
|
| If you don't watch television news, flipping through the
| channels can be genuinely surprising. Because if it's
| Princess Diana's birthday, I almost guarantee _one_ of
| them will be running a retrospective segment.
| whiteboardr wrote:
| +1
|
| "news" detox is as important as a healthy or non existent
| interaction with social media.
| lazystar wrote:
| pro tip from an internet addict - r/aviation has a great
| community of pilots and aviation techs with insightful
| comments.
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1l9hqzp/air_indi
| a...
| Thorrez wrote:
| http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews
| bgirard wrote:
| I agree with that wholeheartedly. The problem is that people
| want to discuss today's news now. Explaining them this and
| not being able to engage in the conversation isn't a great
| way to connect with people unfortunately.
| atonse wrote:
| I suppose one way (now that you've brought this up, which
| is totally valid), is to openly state that this is what we
| know right now, and that often changes in a week.
|
| And that could itself be a tangent in the conversation,
| alternate theories. (Or might be a frustrating one if
| nobody is receptive)
| travisgriggs wrote:
| There's always the weather... how's yours? Mine is warm, a
| bit of cloudy, and a bit of smoke in the air from PNW
| fires.
| blitzar wrote:
| Mine has been crazy - sunny, then rained, now overcast
| and all while being unseasonably humid. I should have
| mowed the lawn while it was sunny earlier but missed the
| window to get it done.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I don't know if that's meant to be a joke or serious, but I
| would disagree.
|
| Most daily news is quite factual, assuming a reputable
| source. It doesn't require detective work the way plane
| crashes do.
|
| And when it is incorrect or misleading, a week usually won't
| make a difference. It takes months or years or decades for
| the truth to come out, often in a book by a journalist or
| historian who frames it as a "tell-all", or a Pulitzer Prize-
| nominated series of newspapers articles, etc.
| layer8 wrote:
| Is there an online version of "last week's newspaper"? More
| specifically, that primarily contains reporting about
| somewhat "matured" topics, as opposed to still developing
| news.
| jrmg wrote:
| It's not online, but Delayed Gratification is a quarterly
| news magazine that reports on the news of the _previous_
| quarter with an up-to-date perspective. It's British but
| covers world news.
|
| https://www.slow-journalism.com/
| SecretDreams wrote:
| There's footage after takeoff of it descending with the air ram
| deployed, no engine power, gears down, and flaps up.
|
| TBD on the cause, but loss of engines for _some reason_ seems
| to be the case.
|
| I do agree that a lot of info comes out first week that isn't
| all right. I'm just reciting what's been shown in videos.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I 'm just reciting what's been shown in videos_
|
| Of unknown provenance, with unknown visual artefacts, _et
| cetera_. Even if completely legit, with context and thus
| chain of causation obscured to the point that discerning
| ultimate and proximate causes is impossible.
| perching_aix wrote:
| I wish every news was held to this standard.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| The industry would be substantially smaller. This runs
| counter to the interested of every existing industry
| participant.
| perching_aix wrote:
| I agree. Not sure if there's any possible alternative
| worlds where the checks and balances shake out something
| better either sadly.
| SecretDreams wrote:
| Agreed, but it doesn't look like AI. Video(s) look real to
| my untrained eyes. Everyone is going to speculate
| regardless of the top level disclaimer. I rather just at
| least present what data is available as of now.
|
| The city the incident took place in has a subreddit. Feel
| free to go take a look and judge for yourself. It's a bit
| NSFW at the moment.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _present what data is available_
|
| It's not. It's one video of unknown quality and
| relevance, picked somewhat randomly out of all the other
| available videos and data, the most relevant of which
| aren't publicly available.
|
| > _Feel free to go take a look and judge for yourself_
|
| It's the usual emotional coping through baseless
| speculation. There are healthier ways to deal with
| uncertainty amidst tragedy.
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| Some people trust their own thinking to judge what they
| see.
|
| We know it called mayday and then lost communication. It
| also stopped transmitting GPS data.
|
| Looking at this it likely lost all electric power. The
| electric power comes from generators driven by the
| turbines.
|
| If you lose both turbines you lose electricity. You also
| lose the hydraulic system so you can not get in the gear or
| change flaps.
|
| Occam's razor checks out.
| newdee wrote:
| Don't these Dreamliners also have back batteries?
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Even on light GA aircraft the radio will run for an hour
| on the starter battery. This narrative doesn't sound
| realistic.
| hanche wrote:
| They have a RAT (ram air turbine) that deploys
| automatically under specific conditions. It's basically a
| turbine providing electric and hydraulic power. It was
| almost certainly deployed on the accident flight. It will
| only power the most critical equipment, though. Possibly,
| that does not include the ADS-B transmitter (which
| broadcasts position and related data).
| leetrout wrote:
| Do you have a source for this footage or are you referring to
| the video everyone is recirculating?
| ikekkdcjkfke wrote:
| Well, loss of engine power and gliding to a stop is not that
| a far fetched case. Why is there not a fuel dump button to
| prevent a whole trips worth of fuel going up in flames?
| Mindwipe wrote:
| They were only 600ft in the air, barely anything would have
| got out before they hit the ground and you'd have just set
| non-zero amount of innocent people on fire in all
| likelihood when the crash ignited the trail they'd left.
|
| There is a dump fuel button if you're not in the middle of
| a populated city and you're far enough in the sky you've
| got a few minutes.
| iamtheworstdev wrote:
| because painting an entire neighborhood in flammable fluid
| isn't safe... if it doesn't catch fire it'll corrode
| everything it touches.
|
| most planes can't dump fuel anymore. if it's a serious
| enough emergency you land overweight. If it's not then you
| fly long enough to burn it off and land below max landing
| weight.
| sofixa wrote:
| > most planes can't dump fuel anymore. if it's a serious
| enough emergency you land overweight.
|
| When fuel is dumped, it's at high altitude where it just
| evaporates.
|
| Short haul jets can't do it, but their max takeoff weight
| is around their max landing weight, so it's fine. For
| long haul, it's not the same.
| dspillett wrote:
| It wouldn't have been in this case, is the point people
| are making.
| krisoft wrote:
| This airplane was not at high altitude. It crashed right
| after taking off. It only ever climbed to a few hundred
| feet in the air.
| sofixa wrote:
| Yes, I was refuting the generic "planes don't dump fuel"
| statement.
| Larrikin wrote:
| Are both opposing replies just wild speculation from two
| educated software engineers that don't actually know
| anything on the topic?
| Symbiote wrote:
| > most planes can't dump fuel anymore
|
| This is true but irrelevant to this crash. Most
| commercial jets are smaller (A320, 737 etc) and can't
| dump fuel.
|
| Long-haul jets like the 787 do have the capability.
|
| https://www.boeing.com/content/dam/boeing/boeingdotcom/co
| mme...
| Mistletoe wrote:
| If it's HN, yes always.
| speakfreely wrote:
| No one overestimates themselves in other knowledge
| domains quite like software engineers... with the
| possible exception of medical doctors.
| mdavidn wrote:
| There is, but dumping takes time, and it's not done over
| populated areas. It would be low on the pilots' checklist
| in an emergency.
| ekianjo wrote:
| It's possible to dump fuel but you don't have time to dump
| enough in an emergency
| detaro wrote:
| Most airplanes can dump fuel, but it's not an immediate
| thing, so not really applicable here (and obviously doing
| it over a city is to be avoided as well).
|
| It's primarily needed for weight management in planes that
| can take off heavier than they can safely land. I.e. if the
| plane had enough control to abort the flight and return to
| the airport, then it might have been appropriate.
| buildsjets wrote:
| No. Most airliners CANNOT dump fuel. This capability is
| limited to long range wide bodies, like this 787. Neither
| the 737 nor the A320, which constitute the majority of
| commercial air traffic, can dump fuel. Fuel dumping is
| normally performed at an altitude where it should be able
| to evaporate before hitting the ground, and it takes a
| long time, maybe 15 minutes to get from full fuel to
| maximum landing weight. Using it would have made no
| difference to the outcome of the flight other than making
| a larger fire on the ground.
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| A more dispersed fire. The amount of fuel isn't changed
| by dumping.
| cschmatzler wrote:
| Both slats and flaps were on maximum during the entire
| flight.
| hanche wrote:
| That makes no sense, and is not consistent with video
| evidence. Max flaps (40 degrees or so) are typically used
| only for landing. That is very obvious when you see it!
| Usual flap setting for takeoff is on the order of 5-15
| degrees.
| CPLX wrote:
| Do you have a link to that footage? I've seen speculation on
| this from very blurry video but nothing like proof.
|
| On the professional pilot forums the consensus guess is
| inadvertent flap retraction, instead of gear retraction,
| leading to inability to climb.
| cschmatzler wrote:
| A 787 can still climb with flaps up and two healthy
| engines. In the video that was posted everywhere, you can
| CLEARLY hear the RAT spin, which gets deployed
| automatically when both engines go out.
| CPLX wrote:
| > A 787 can still climb with flaps up and two healthy
| engines
|
| Not at takeoff weight with the gear down, this sentence
| is incorrect.
| rurban wrote:
| Or birds hitting both engines. But that must have been a
| big flock then
| CPLX wrote:
| It's unlikely that a bird strike with dual engine failure
| would occur without smoke.
| account42 wrote:
| Gentle tip from a lifelong speculation enthusiast: if
| speculating now is fun for you don't let party poopers stop
| you.
| jgwil2 wrote:
| Call me a "party pooper" if you will but maybe you shouldn't
| be having "fun" with an accident that will have killed
| hundreds of people.
| pixl97 wrote:
| On a long enough timeline we all die. Guess we shouldn't
| ever have "fun".
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| I think boing messed up the service.
|
| They did this because they are parasites that value a few $$
| over human life.
|
| Everyone knows it after the MAX.
|
| Everyone involved in MAX (including engineerings) should get
| a live in prison without pardon.
|
| Sincerely, A fellow engineer
| fortran77 wrote:
| As I've learned from years of reading Hacker News, people who
| program computers are experts in _everything_!
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > Gentle tip from a lifelong aviation enthusiast: wait one week
| before reading on causation.
|
| One week ?
|
| Wait until the damn official report comes out. That's how long
| you should wait.
|
| The investigators have access to more than you or any other
| armchair investigator or journalist will ever do.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Wait until the damn official report comes out. That 's how
| long you should wait_
|
| For public discourse, one week is fine. At that point you
| usually have ground facts established. A common official
| understanding of the known knowns and unknowns is available,
| together with a good profile of the leading conspiracy
| theories that one can filter out.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You mean like the official report that gave us the magic
| bullet theory?
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| There's already conspiracy theory crap on social media in India
| and Pakistan going around. Pretty nasty stuff already.
| dingaling wrote:
| A week isn't long enough. Just wait for the official report.
| LanceH wrote:
| I mentally earmark a month and wait for something "official"
| or at least some expert analysis which can be confirmed. I'm
| not sure what the experts could discern from any video that's
| out there, but sometimes it's a lot.
|
| I'm reminded of the crane collapse in Seattle that had
| pictures afterward and the pins were no longer in it. The
| expert analysis I had seen discussing it had said the pins
| don't just come out in a crane collapse, and where the join
| the sections the crane would be at its strongest. He was, of
| course, lit up by those with possible agendas saying "you
| can't speculate". He was right in the end.
|
| So with the crane collapse it was interesting to see it all
| play out, but it's a matter of keeping perspective. There
| were literal pictures of the pins not being in place.
| Explanation that those pins should not be removed until later
| in the disassembly of the crane. Then there was the other
| "side" hurling accusations at him. Finally the official
| report.
|
| Keeping perspective to me is that yes, I want to know what
| caused it. But I'm also interested along the way that some
| people/companies/govts seem to have a vested interest in
| shaping the story. So I don't run with any of it, but I try
| to remember who said what, even though nobody ever seems to
| be responsible for being batshit crazy.
| gejose wrote:
| The source is a lot more important than the timing. Whenever
| Pilot Debrief or the AOPA comments on it you know it's going to
| be reliable.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@pilot-debrief/videos
| https://www.youtube.com/@AirSafetyInstitute/videos
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| Counterproductive towards what end? It's not as if anyone on
| here is going to be invited to present before the air accident
| board?
| platevoltage wrote:
| This tip goes for pretty much any non-aviation breaking news as
| well.
| brunohaid wrote:
| Baffling tragedy, again.
|
| Clear skies, no LiveATC but reports of single Mayday call, gear
| out but no flaps and no control inputs visible in the grainy
| video. Something has to go really catastrophically wrong with a
| modern jetliner for that to happen, like the very dense flock of
| birds in Korea with the 737 a couple of months back.
|
| The very short intersection takeoff seems like a good hint (and
| terrible practice), but all gears and engines look kinda OK from
| the outside. If they'd scraped something on takeoff hard enough
| to take out both engines, there'd probably be some visible
| damage, or at least some gears sheared off.
|
| EDIT:
|
| Fully agree with the speculation in light of tragedy comments,
| but aviation is a bit of a special case. The reason it's so safe
| is because an awful lot of people immediately start looking into
| potential reasons and then spend years getting to the bottom of
| it. The initial speculation is like an exercise: what could have
| happened? What if I'm in that situation, and need to act now,
| without knowing much of anything? If you do that a couple of
| dozen or hundred times throughout your life, it really builds a
| foundation for when an actual emergency ever happens to you.
|
| It's a bit like the reason most flight attendants in the
| emergency exit jump seat across from you won't talk with you
| during the actual takeoff and landing: they're mentally walking
| through a potential emergency and what they'd then need to do.
| Every single time. So if it ever happens, there's muscle memory,
| 10000x over.
|
| EDIT 2: see the Flightradar24 comment below, it looks like they
| did backtrack and use the full runway.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| A pilot speculated that it looks like a multiple bird strike.
| xattt wrote:
| Why no control inputs then? Surely, the plane could still be
| commanded in absence of engine power.
| cm2187 wrote:
| But also how long after take off do you retract the flaps?
| Can it be a pilot error (took off without flaps?). It
| happened more than once in the past, though I thought a
| modern plane like the dreamliner would make that mistake
| nearly impossible.
| fabian2k wrote:
| I don't really know enough about this, but what would you
| expect the pilots to do with that control if they don't
| have any thrust? Unless there was a suitable landing spot
| very, very close I don't see what they could do even if
| they have full control of the plane. There is nothing they
| can do except getting the engines to work to avoid a crash,
| the only thing controls would give them is the option to
| choose a slightly different place to crash.
| Arch-TK wrote:
| The engines power the hydraulic actuators in an aircraft an
| aircraft of that size cannot be trivially controlled
| without that hydraulic system. The APU should have been
| started to provide backup power in the case of engine
| failure but during take-off there is already very little
| time to do anything and it's possible that the sudden
| workload overloaded both the pilot and copilot or some
| other human factors were involved.
|
| That being said, in the video I saw, the aircraft was
| already going too slow to realistically recover. And all
| you would get at that point is just an extended duration of
| glide which at best would let you find a less populated
| area to crash into.
| consumer451 wrote:
| You can hear what sounds a lot like the very distinct
| sound of the RAT having been deployed in one of the
| videos. There is also no main turbine sound. This really
| seems like dual engine failure, for whatever reason.
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/ahmedabad/comments/1l9i1ga/om_sh
| ant...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_air_turbine
| Arch-TK wrote:
| I saw you mentioning this but the RAT on the 787 sticks
| out of the bottom and should have been visible at around
| :04 seconds into that video when the aircraft silhouette
| is visible clearly against the background.
|
| Although it's possible I am just missing from the video.
| You are right that the sound is quite distinct and can be
| clearly heard in the video.
| consumer451 wrote:
| The RAT is surprising tiny on the 787, and this is a
| phone video of a monitor, then run through Reddit
| compression. I am of course not 100% sure about any of
| this.
|
| https://encrypted-
| tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ95qKj...
|
| edit: here you might possibly see it on the right, a very
| tiny blurry thing
|
| https://imgur.com/a/CElWKzQ
|
| source: https://old.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1l9hqz
| p/air_india...
| Arch-TK wrote:
| Yeah I saw that picture and came back here. I think you
| are 100% right that the RAT is deployed.
|
| From the video of the runway it also seems like the
| aircraft didn't do a short takeoff (ADS-B location data
| is always crappy on the ground in my experience so this
| is entirely unsurprising).
|
| There was a "smoke cloud" from behind the left engine
| which could also have just been a dust cloud right after
| rotation.
|
| The flaps allegedly could be at only 5deg (which is why
| they're so hard to spot) because of the runway
| inclination.
|
| The mystery thickens...
| chinathrow wrote:
| There is a video circulating that the air con was off on
| the previous flight - that might indicate why the APU was
| off for the crash flight as well.
| Arch-TK wrote:
| Air conditioning is powered by bleed air from the engines
| (or the APU or a ground source). The APU wouldn't be
| running during any normal flight, it's normally only ever
| used on the ground when the engines are off and there's
| no external power source.
|
| So I am not sure what you are trying to say here, sorry.
| foldr wrote:
| The 787 doesn't use bleed air to power anything.
| tim333 wrote:
| What would you do with the controls? There wasn't an
| alternative landing area they could have got to.
|
| About all they could probably do was to try to get the
| engines going.
| greybox wrote:
| What do you mean by "(and terrible practice)"?
| brunohaid wrote:
| ,,Runway behind you" is drilled into your head as one of the
| useless things in aviation. You always want to make sure to
| use the most runway available to you, exactly for cases when
| something happens. Hypothetical in this case: you realize
| something's wrong with the plane, but you're already too fast
| and close to the end of the runway to reject the takeoff
| because you wouldn't be able to stop in time anymore.
|
| Large airports with heavy traffic sometimes have operational
| constraints to send a plane out ahead of another from some
| intersection, but if the ADSB data is correct, taking off
| from half the available runway in a fully loaded 787 isn't a
| good idea. You just give up a ton of margin for errors.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| it means using less then the full length of runaway
| available. I'm not a pilot but i'm guessing that it's not
| good because it adds an unnecessary potential complication to
| the take off.
| Arch-TK wrote:
| An intersection takeoff is a takeoff where you do not use the
| full length of the runway. When you are a large aeroplane
| with a full load, reaching the necessary takeoff speeds
| required to rotate (pull up and begin lifting from the
| ground) can take longer than normal, at which point the climb
| speed will also be reduced if not properly compensated for
| (e.g. you miscalculate something and set the wrong elevator
| trim/takeoff thrust/something else).
|
| When you are taking off, you have a short portion of the
| runway which you can use to abort the takeoff depending on
| failures, but that portion can become even shorter depending
| on the length of the runway.
|
| Usually the first part of takeoff you would abort for almost
| any reason, and the second part you would only abort in a
| serious emergency, once you reach a certain point you simply
| cannot afford to abort because you will not stop in time to
| crash into whatever is at the end of the runway at which
| point you must take-off even if you are going to immediately
| request an emergency landing afterwards.
|
| So if you are heavily loaded, with a lot of people on board,
| and you do an intersection takeoff, you are taking a risk
| that if you made a mistake or something goes wrong you will
| not have the ability to safely recover. That's why it's a
| terrible practice in this case. All it does is save a little
| bit of time which would be spent taxiing to the actual start
| of the runway.
| bravesoul2 wrote:
| Why is it a thing? Everything else in aviation seems to
| have good amounts of checks, balances and buffers. It feels
| the same to me as skimping a couple percent on fuel or
| doing less frequent maintenance. Both also reduce
| turnaround time.
| Arch-TK wrote:
| Usually some form of mis-management which in this case
| may have put pressure on the pilot to accept a shorter
| take-off option due to some minutes of time saved.
| Sometimes pilots also might get their priorities wrong.
| There's a concept of "get-there-itis" which is also a
| common cause of crashes but it's currently unclear if it
| was a factor in this case.
|
| I imagine in a while we will all be able to read the
| investigation reports, since the aircraft crashed shortly
| after take-off the black box recorder should contain all
| the information we need to figure out most of what
| happened including possibly the reasoning for the
| decision to make an intersection takeoff.
| alistairSH wrote:
| A recent, famous case of "get-there-itis" would be the
| 2020 Calabasas helicopter crash (that killed Kobe Bryant
| and several friends/family members).
| brunohaid wrote:
| Good question. False sense of routine, experience?
| Definitely a pet peeve.
|
| Was flying as a passenger on a really small airline (8
| seater plane, Green Air) out of San Jose in Costa Rica.
| We got cleared for takeoff ahead of a United 737, at most
| 500 feet into the humongous runway for that plane. Yet
| the pilots still put in the 2 minute effort to taxi back
| to the beginning of the runway, even though they could
| have easily taken off from where we entered it. Don't
| know if it was their protocol or the pilots decision, but
| I will trust this airline for a very long time.
| phkahler wrote:
| If something large had just taken off ahead of you, it
| was probably not safe to go anyway. Wake turbulence can
| kill you. If you need to wait 2 minutes, why not back
| taxi? It'll feel like doing something vs nothing and you
| get the extra extra runway.
| brunohaid wrote:
| We took off _ahead_ of them.
| foenix wrote:
| Pilot here: even in my small Cessna I will backtrack do
| you know why? Because it gives me that money more options
| to work with in case something goes wrong with my take
| off.
| bombcar wrote:
| The most useless things in the world are runway behind
| you, altitude above you, and fuel in the fuel truck.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Less time on runway means more throughput for a given
| buffer time between planes or larger buffer for a given
| throughput.
|
| Now, obviously there's a discussion to be had about where
| the line is and what should and shouldn't be standard
| operating procedure but there's basically no safety
| improvement to have even a fully loaded 757 or Learjet or
| whatever drag it's butt to the very end of a 15000ft
| runway.
|
| A pilot may be trying to scoot out of there ASAP because
| he knows based on the radio and who's where that's gonna
| make everyone else's jobs a little easier. An airport is
| run by professionals all of whom are trying to make
| things run smooth. It's at the complete opposite end of
| the spectrum from a school or Starbucks parking lot.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Depends on the circumstances. Probably not the case with
| a jet like a 787, but sometimes ATC will allow small
| planes to 'cut the line' with an intersection takeoff.
|
| This runway was over 2 miles long. If you are in a
| smaller commuter prop plane or small jet, you don't need
| half that space for the takeoff. You call up ATC and they
| give you the option of taking off at an intersection now,
| or being #15 in line behind the heavies, its totally fine
| to do that if you are within the operating margins of the
| aircraft. The pilots have already done the math to know
| exactly how long of a runway they need for the worst case
| scenario (rejected takeoff just below V1), so if they
| know that they need 5k feet worst case scenario, and are
| offered an intersection takeoff with 7k feet of an 11k
| foot runway, there is already pretty big margin built in.
|
| The thing to remember is that the aviation community and
| manufacturers have decided that once a jet is past a
| certain speed, you are committed to taking off and
| climbing out no matter what is going on. There is no
| circumstance where airliners will go beyond that speed
| and then try to reject the takeoff, and land back on that
| same runway.
|
| As far as fuel, you might be distressed to know that you
| rarely fly with full tanks. They typically fly with the
| amount of fuel their route uses for the load they have +
| a margin for diversion. This is both a cost savings
| measure, as well as an operational concern (for example
| at Denver during a hot summer day, a lot of planes can't
| be loaded to maximum weight and still be able to do a
| rejected takeoff)
| pncnmnp wrote:
| Regarding the intersection takeoff, Flightradar24 just tweeted
| this:
|
| > We are continuing to process data from receiver sources
| individually. Additional processing confirms #AI171 departed
| using the full length of Runway 23 at Ahmedabad. RWY 23 is
| 11,499 feet long. The aircraft backtracked to the end of the
| runway before beginning its take off roll.
|
| https://x.com/flightradar24/status/1933138841214611760
| james_pm wrote:
| FR24 is also on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/flightradar
| 24.com/post/3lrfwaqs2ls2...
| epolanski wrote:
| > gear out
|
| That is normal and standard procedure if you're having issues
| lifting the plane, because retracting the gear means
| _increasing_ drag for a crucial 10/15 seconds as the doors open
| and thus slowing the plane further.
|
| > but no flaps and no control inputs visible
|
| Standard Dreamliner operating procedure, you take off at flaps
| 10 or 5, they are barely visible from the outside, see many
| random videos of 787s takeoffs on Youtube like this:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Ld_zyEESazI
| brunohaid wrote:
| True on both counts, was a quite early comment and initially
| thought they're coming back in to land vs barely having taken
| off. Only leaves control inputs but given how short the video
| is it could also be that there simply wasn't much to
| input/correct anymore despite the slight rocking.
|
| Can't edit anymore, but the general gist of catastrophic
| failure needed to prevent a 787 from climbing out of this
| situation still holds.
| wat10000 wrote:
| I don't think you'd expect any control inputs in that
| scenario. They were level with a reasonable pitch angle.
| Aircraft attitude was fine, they just didn't have enough
| power to arrest the descent. Such a loss of power with a
| full load of fuel definitely indicates a swift catastrophic
| failure to the engines at least.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Very much so. Gear retraction should only happen if
| (generalizing here) you've established a "positive rate of
| climb".
| apple4ever wrote:
| > That is normal and standard procedure if you're having
| issues lifting the plane, because retracting the gear means
| _increasing_ drag for a crucial 10/15 seconds as the doors
| open and thus slowing the plane further.
|
| Oh fascinating! I would not have considered that but it
| totally makes sense.
| Havoc wrote:
| Just fell out of the sky. Whatever went wrong clearly wasn't
| save-able via pilot skill
| mkoryak wrote:
| Nyt gift link:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06/12/world/india-plane-cr...
| xiphias2 wrote:
| The Boeing Dreamliner link was marked as dupe... can you please
| make that the main one? This link doesn't even contain the plane
| type
| altairprime wrote:
| You have to email the mods for them to make fixes like this.
| throwanem wrote:
| This is the first fatal crash of a 787.
| babushkaboi wrote:
| Flight Crew
|
| Sumeet Sabharwal - Captain - 8800+ flying hours Clive Kunder -
| First Officer 1 - 1100+ flying hours
|
| Cabin Crew
|
| Aparna Mahadik - Cabin Executive-1 Shradha Dhavan - Cabin
| Executive-2 Deepak Pathak Irfan Shaikh Lamnunthem Singson
| Maithili Patil Manisha Thapa
|
| This was crew of AI171. Next time you're on a flight please take
| a moment to thank the pilots, CISF staff and cabin crew for all
| they do to keep us safe.
| DanielleMolloy wrote:
| This is the 4th within less than a year:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_aircraft_acc...
| quantumfissure wrote:
| And there were 7 in one year during 2018 and 2019.
|
| Looking through the chart you linked, averages around 3 per
| year. Considering how many planes are currently in the sky at
| this very moment, this is a wildly useless statistic used to
| cause fear and panic.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| Post-covid, aren't there considerably fewer planes in the
| skies? When i look up, the skies seem remarkably empty,
| compared to previously.
| tatersolid wrote:
| Anecdotally there seems to be a bit _more_ air traffic in
| around Chicago versus 2019, but perhaps I just notice
| flights overhead more now as I commute downtown far less.
| This site shows current ORD volume at roughly 2019 levels:
|
| https://chicagoairportguide.com/statistics/
| DanielleMolloy wrote:
| > Looking through the chart you linked, averages around 3 per
| year. > this is a wildly useless statistic used to cause fear
| and panic.
|
| I can read too. I added a comment with a number. You don't
| know my intent, this is your interpretation.
|
| Besides, 2018/19 was a steep outlier with the 737 MAX
| crashes. This is why these got widespread attention and have
| been discussed down to the last detail for years.
| arccy wrote:
| We're on 4, and only halfway through the year. We're on track
| to exceed 7.
| quantumfissure wrote:
| 4 in the last year (365 days), not calendar year.
| debarshri wrote:
| Is it an old or the newer aircraft?
| fredoralive wrote:
| The plane was 11 years old if Wikipedia is correct.
| DanielleMolloy wrote:
| There is a person on X who says he has left the plane before
| takeoff and has uploaded videos of non-functional entertainment
| panels: https://x.com/akku92/status/1933114664923148455
| Macha wrote:
| I guess it's kind of surprising in a relatively new plane, but
| I encounter non functional entertainment systems relatively
| often. They're not treated like the safety critical systems by
| any airline
| DanielleMolloy wrote:
| I thought the same but he implies that the screens were not
| the only tech not working (AC, seats damaged).
|
| It is quite an intuition to decide to leave a plane in such a
| moment. He just escaped death and is now aggressively
| attacked for saying something potentially relevant.
| RandomBacon wrote:
| It reads to me as if he was on the flight before the doomed
| flight.
| Symbiote wrote:
| India is a large country, so a plane travelling a route
| like Delhi-Ahmedabad-London isn't unusual, with passengers
| able to board and disembark in Ahmedabad.
|
| (There may also be security rules like requiring continuing
| passengers to disembark with their hand luggage before
| reboarding. I don't know, it's 15+ years since I took a
| flight like this.)
| Voloskaya wrote:
| He did not leave the plane, he said he was on the previous
| flight from Delhi to Ahmedabad, before the plane then went
| on to do the Ahmedabad - London flight when it crashed. You
| can see his flight ticket in the tweet.
| chromehearts wrote:
| No correlation between non-functional displays on passenger
| seats & possible engine failures etc.
| arccy wrote:
| They could both point to poor maintenance by the airline
| eldaisfish wrote:
| Air India has a long history of poor maintenance. Not many
| crashes, but lots of reports of poor cabin maintenance,
| broken electronics, air conditioning not working, etc.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| In other words, they are the "No green jellybeans" clause,
| proving the vendor didn't thoroughly check all the details.
|
| I'm a system engineer - the hardware kind, not the more
| familiar network kind - and that is my job.
| snypher wrote:
| Is the inflight map for the passengers on the minimum
| equipment list?
| DanielleMolloy wrote:
| Sure. But it could imply a lack of maintenance.
| padjo wrote:
| I mean technically there is a correlation, it's just very
| unlikely to imply causation.
| rsync wrote:
| "No correlation between non-functional displays on passenger
| seats & possible engine failures etc."
|
| No. No no no. This is wrong, mistaken thinking.
|
| A minimum standard of operations and attention to detail must
| be adhered to for high consequence / life critical endeavors
| and that behavior (culture?) _must be enforced at all levels
| throughout the operation_.
|
| Ignore this heuristic at your peril - as either a consumer of
| these services _or a provider_ who must demand high
| performance from your workforce.
|
| Remember: flight attendants have (rarely exercised) critical
| health and life safety responsibilities. What messages do
| they internalize if this is the fourth flight in a row the
| coffee maker has been cracked and out of order ?
| renewiltord wrote:
| Sure, nice brown M&Ms type relation. But I've encountered
| entertainment systems failures on Virgin, Emirates, Qatar
| and they're all among the safest airlines according to this
| https://airlinelist.com/
| wat10000 wrote:
| The M&Ms were for cases where the show was likely to be
| considerably more demanding than what the venue normally
| handled, and they needed to make sure that the people
| running the place actually stepped up for it.
|
| The organizations doing aircraft maintenance are always
| handling life-critical stuff. You don't need a weird test
| to see if they're paying attention.
|
| It's not like this stuff is just decided ad hoc and
| planes fly with broken IFE equipment because of bad
| culture. This stuff is worked out by engineers and
| regulators. There's a list of stuff that needs to be
| working for the plane to be allowed to take off. If
| something on that list isn't working, you don't fly, even
| though the plane may be perfectly capable of it. And I
| guarantee the IFE equipment isn't on that list.
|
| Frequently broken passenger amenities indicate bad
| customer service but it doesn't reflect on safety.
| lxgr wrote:
| I don't think this is necessarily the case here.
|
| Airlines are large and heavily regulated organizations, and
| passenger amenities (once successfully certified) might
| just not be in the loop for mandatory maintenance cycles
| and certifications.
|
| Maintenance of IFE units vs. avionics or the airframe
| itself might as well be performed by completely different
| contractors, maintenance crews etc.
| fisherjeff wrote:
| It's wildly unrealistic to expect maintenance to fix 100.0%
| of issues, and to fix them immediately at that. There's a
| balance to be struck with on-time performance that will
| naturally prioritize safety critical maintenance while
| postponing cosmetic repairs until they can be performed
| without schedule pressure.
| whycome wrote:
| Swissair 111?
|
| Correlation just helps lead you to common causes.
|
| Not a cause but and indicator.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Normal for Air India and not relevant to the accident. Tata has
| been trying to resolve the previous owners poor management of
| the airline.
| smcleod wrote:
| Wow the 787s look so dated compared inside compared to even
| a320 neos!
| crossroadsguy wrote:
| Friends from the city told me it crashed into hostel or mess hall
| of a medical college.
| billfruit wrote:
| Avherald seems overwhelmed. Any other sources for more
| information?
| ExoticPearTree wrote:
| From the videos online, it looks like the plane stalled.
| dckx wrote:
| I'm intently following:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_India_Flight_171
|
| Any discussion about causes is going to be pure speculation right
| now. It's too early. But the Wiki article is pretty good to get
| an overview. Some interesting discussion on its talk page too:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Air_India_Flight_171
| jmkni wrote:
| Wikipedia is far from perfect, but in situations like this it
| is kind of incredible how well it can work
| msravi wrote:
| Apparently, there's a survivor.
|
| https://x.com/sidhant/status/1933160167816007842
| whitegladis wrote:
| https://imgur.com/a/ni11fhQ
| chias wrote:
| They redact some part of the text on the ticket, but leave
| the scancode unredacted, which contains all of this text and
| more :P
| markus_zhang wrote:
| The lottery guy. And he is unscratched!
| leumon wrote:
| _"Thirty seconds after take off, there was a loud noise and
| then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly," said
| Ramesh, speaking to the Hindustan Times. He said he "impact
| injuries", including bruising on his chest, eyes and feet but
| was otherwise lucid and conscious._
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/jun/12/air-india...
| storus wrote:
| Seat 11A. That's interesting, typically most survivors are
| located in the back, this one was in the front-center.
| tim333 wrote:
| The plane seemed to come down tail down so I guess that end
| would have absorbed the shock more. 11A is front left by the
| way.
| storus wrote:
| I meant the section of the plane was between front and
| center, behind business class.
| kitd wrote:
| 11A was next to the emergency exit. There was a comment on
| Reddit suggesting he actually bailed just before impact.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| That doesn't make sense. 100+mph into terrain is going to
| go way worse for you out of a seat than in it.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Not if you ride the door!
| mrguyorama wrote:
| You ~cannot~ don't want to "bail just before impact"
|
| A plane at takeoff is pressurized, and that pressure holds
| the doors closed, as well as the physical locks. You cannot
| open it.
|
| Don't believe random reddit comments. Average people know
| less than nothing about planes.
|
| Speaking of random people knowing less than nothing: I
| believed that at takeoff and landing, planes were slightly
| overpressurized to increase airframe rigidity. I think I
| got that impression from a very old pilot, so either it
| used to be true or it was never true and I'm just wrong.
|
| This person probably did not bail out of the plane in order
| to survive, but maybe you COULD open the doors at takeoff
| and landing, not that you want to.
|
| Additional edit: I've actually flown a few times while
| running the barometer on my phone for funzies. I might be
| able to find a log of data to confirm or deny my mistaken
| belief! It's fun to do because you can see the
| pressurization increase signalling that the pilots are
| preparing for descent even before they tell you!
| globular-toast wrote:
| The pressure inside is not more than atmospheric pressure
| at the ground. In fact I think they only maintain the
| pressure of around 1000m or so. There would be absolutely
| no point pressurising the cabin higher than atmospheric
| pressure at sea level and if they did you'd feel it
| before the plane took off.
| roncesvalles wrote:
| Someone on the r/aviation thread speculated 11A would be
| right above the gear assembly and is hardened.
| ragazzina wrote:
| I cannot comment on this specific point, but /r/aviation in
| general is terrible after an accident.
| franktankbank wrote:
| I call bullshit.
| msravi wrote:
| CCTV capture of complete takeoff:
| https://x.com/ShivAroor/status/1933165937399648447
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| I'm told not to speculate, but I'm going to do it anyway
| because this video clearly shows there was an issue going to
| full thrust. It's an _extremely rare_ dual engine failure or
| pilots ' error not calling up full thrust to keep it flying.
| Very possible this is the famous bird strike issue Capt.
| Sullenburger experienced in 2009.
| msravi wrote:
| But doesn't seem like a bird strike issue here, right? And
| given the rarity of a dual engine failure, seems to point to
| not calling up full thrust? But seems to me that this kind of
| error would be more common without any technical safeguards?
| rawgabbit wrote:
| Extremely slow takeoff. The engines appeared to have both quit.
| And the plane did a slow descent and crash.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Those slow seconds of falling must be psychological torture.
| If I'm in a plane crash I want it to be instantaneous.
| gambiting wrote:
| It looks like it was fast enough that most people on board
| probably didn't realize they were about to crash, or they
| crashed within seconds of the realization. As torturous as
| that must have been, it was thankfully very very brief.
| meonkeys wrote:
| Odd, I got a cert warning for that URL. This worked:
| https://xcancel.com/ShivAroor/status/1933165937399648447
| callamdelaney wrote:
| There is a lot of dust at the 20s mark, I'd assume that there
| shouldn't be dust on normal takeoffs at busy airports.
| cmilton wrote:
| It's possible they had to use part of the runway that most
| other takeoffs don't need to extend to. Just pure
| speculation.
| tim333 wrote:
| It's interesting that up to about 30s in the video you can see
| the plane climbing normally, then it loses power and starts
| falling, about 10s after take off.
|
| Apparently the pilot radioed "Mayday...no thrust, losing power,
| unable to lift!" 11 secs after takeoff.
|
| It would seem to fit with a bird strike on both engines. Or
| contaminated fuel I guess. The stuff about flaps seems
| irrelevant.
|
| Quite likely this and Jeju Air crash in Korea and Sully landing
| in the Hudson were all caused by bird strike taking out both
| engines.
| nitinreddy88 wrote:
| This is the full video of take off to crash:
| https://x.com/ShivAroor/status/1933165937399648447
| rigrassm wrote:
| Just my personal observations of the video, I'm in no way
| qualified to speak on the matter.
|
| There's a large plume that looks like smoke to me looks like
| smoke (could be dust/sand being blown away but I wouldn't think
| you'd see that much from a busy runway) visible off the left
| side of the runway. The plane is obscured by that structure
| when it happens but it looks like it's created at the same time
| that the plane is leaving the ground.
|
| It looks like the plane stops accelerating completely at that
| same moment without any change in orientation which, in my
| head, looks like both engines suffered total failure at the
| same time.
|
| From my limited knowledge (mostly from Mentour Pilot YT
| videos), that seems consistent with what you'd see if the plane
| flew through a large flock of birds that are spread out enough
| that both engines would be hit at the same time.
|
| Again, purely speculation on my part based solely on what I see
| in this 1 video.
| jharohit wrote:
| one dude sitting in 11A jumped out & survived pretty much
| unharmed. This was the Emergency Exit.
|
| https://x.com/indiatoday/status/1933160181871099943?s=46
| mkfs wrote:
| Given the fake news that came out of India after Sindoor, with
| the government insisting no fighters were lost even after
| third-party confirmation from France and the US, I'm hesitant
| to believe a purported "sole survivor" silver lining narrative
| when the only evidence is a few still photos and some brief
| video clips, especially in the age of AI.
| aurizon wrote:
| A sad case. Once they find the data boxes and inspect the data
| and voice records of the crew they might arrive at an answer.
| Unlike the USA, India as well as China prioritise political
| aspects above facts. This leads to the danger of hidden facts
| that show any officer is at fault. They also have a rigid
| hierarchy so if a senior officer makes an error, a junior officer
| dares not correct him and cause the senior to lose 'face'. This
| has caused plane crashes in India/China in the past.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| India has an aviation safety record the past 20 years nearly as
| good as USAs. Your comment isn't helpful.
| aurizon wrote:
| I do not agree
| aurizon wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zi0HHGA4Ak&ab_channel=Pilot...
| aurizon wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUFS2np0mKc&ab_channel=Pilot...
| teitoklien wrote:
| A Boeing Whistleblower engineer had warned of premature failure
| of this Boeing 787 Dreamliner and had asked US congress to bring
| down every single plane of this model type 1 year ago.
|
| He died of "suicide" suspiciously right after. I hope Boeing gets
| investigated for failure after failure after failure, and crashes
| it has caused recently.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/apr/16/boeing-whis...
| jibe wrote:
| His warnings were about the fuselage construction. This doesn't
| appear to be a structural failure, of the type he was worried
| about.
| teitoklien wrote:
| He raised concerns on many issues including the fuselage
| issue
|
| >Salehpour, who has worked at Boeing for more than a decade,
| says he faced retaliation, including threats and exclusion
| from meetings, after raising concerns over issues including a
| gap between parts of the fuselage of the 787.
|
| That particular issue you quote, was only given as a single
| example
| carabiner wrote:
| The whistleblower in your linked article, Sam Salehpour, is
| still alive.
| pluc wrote:
| "AI crash" results are about to get wild.
| constantinum wrote:
| Some interesting conversations here in this thread
| https://www.pprune.org/accidents-close-calls/666472-plane-cr...
| horns4lyfe wrote:
| You man the country the airline CEOs insist on offshoring all
| their software dev to? That India? Very reassuring
| rich_sasha wrote:
| https://www.pprune.org/accidents-close-calls/666472-plane-cr...
|
| Still wild speculation, but at least a high proportion of it
| informed.
| impulser_ wrote:
| Why is it always foreign airlines that crash?
|
| The US flys significantly more than any country in the world and
| operates the most Boeing airplanes including the 737 and 737 Max,
| yet there hasn't been a single major accident like this and the
| Max crashes in the US.
|
| Are these planes not maintained to the same standards, are the
| pilots not trained on these types of planes as much as in the US?
| amiga386 wrote:
| > there hasn't been a single major accident like this
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_191
|
| > American Airlines Flight 191 crashed shortly after lifting
| off the runway at Chicago O'Hare Airport [...] The accident was
| attributed to improper maintenance procedures. The crash
| resulted in the deaths of all 271 passengers and crew on board,
| as well as two people on the ground.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_587
|
| > American Airlines Flight 587 crashed in the Belle Harbor
| neighborhood of Queens, New York, just after departing John F.
| Kennedy International Airport bound for Las Americas
| International Airport, Santo Domingo. The first officer's
| overuse of the rudder in response to wake turbulence from a
| Japan Airlines 747 was cited as cause. All 260 people on board,
| as well as five people on the ground, died from the crash
|
| I'm going to downvote you now.
| decimalenough wrote:
| The first was in 1979, back when planes crashed left and
| right everywhere.
|
| The second, in 2001, remains the last major accident in the
| US.
| bravesoul2 wrote:
| You are comparing the US pop 350m (?) to rest of the world pop
| 8850m. Sure planes per capita are higher in US but it's an
| unfair comparison.
|
| Not to say there isn't something there to dive into with data
| and some countries are safer than others to fly. And definitely
| some airlines than others.
| ragazzina wrote:
| >Why is it always foreign airlines that crash?
|
| And why is it always Boeing planes?
| callamdelaney wrote:
| It looks like that runway is relatively short, is it perhaps near
| the length of runway required to get a plane like that off the
| ground?
| bravesoul2 wrote:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c626y121rxxo
|
| Goes through the usual speculations. However it mentions
| interesting the region has a high number of bird strikes.
| urbandw311er wrote:
| It surely can't be a coincidence that the sole survivor was sat
| next to the emergency exit. I still can't fathom how he walked
| away from that, though. Or even got out the plane alive.
| tim333 wrote:
| If you look at the photo a large chunk of plane was stuck in
| the building https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-
| news/2025/06/1...
|
| I guess he was just lucky to be in a bit sticking out rather
| than crushed?
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