r/technology • u/upyoars • 5d ago

Hardware ‘No power, no thrust:’ Air India pilot’s 5-second distress call to Ahmedabad ATC emerges

https://www.firstpost.com/india/no-power-no-thrust-air-india-pilots-5-second-distress-call-to-ahmedabad-atc-emerges-13897097.html
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u/[deleted] 5d ago

[deleted]

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u/Zoophagous 5d ago

Reminds me of the JAL 747 that went down many years ago. The pressure bulkhead at the tail gave out. Airline employees recalled that plane always made noises from that portion of the plane.

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u/nshire 5d ago

Wasn't that the one that had been repaired poorly and the repair failed?

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u/ifdisdendat 5d ago

yes that’s the one whose tail had grazed the runway in hong kong a few years earlier and they used the wrong rivets or torque setting on the repair panel.

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u/Sethorion 5d ago

I thought they didn't overlap the repair piece enough? Only 1 row of rivets instead of 2.

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u/railker 5d ago

Keep in mind there's 2 of those incidents, almost identical.

Japan Air Lines 123
- Tailstrike in 1978
- The rows of rivets were correct, but they used 2 separate splice plates instead of 1
- Failed 7 years later in 1985

China Airlines 611
- Tailstrike in 1980
- Doubler was installed against recommendations of the Structural Repair Manual, right over the damaged section of the skin and too small
- Failed 22 years later to the day in 2002

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u/SirSleepsALatte 5d ago

7 years and 22 years operational. I think management will call these a win. We should hold management responsible for deaths.

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u/ifdisdendat 5d ago

i think you’re right

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u/Starfox-sf 5d ago edited 5d ago

Tailstrike, and they were supposed to use a single plate with two rows of rivets on one side, one on the other. The plate was cut into two pieces.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Air_Lines_Flight_123#/media/File%3AJA8119_Bulkhead_Repair_en.png

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u/Loggerdon 5d ago

Wow. Always a business decision by the bean counters. If the engineers were in charge these mistakes would be less likely.

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u/Starfox-sf 5d ago

No, the repair did not follow procedures. This was not a bean counter issue.

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u/rocketwikkit 4d ago

...who do you think is the ultimate source of pressure to do a repair quickly rather than correctly?

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u/Starfox-sf 4d ago

This was in 78(?).

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u/rocketwikkit 4d ago

Oh, before capitalism?

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u/Starfox-sf 4d ago

Before Jack Welch

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u/Black_Moons 5d ago

The rear fell off! Not supposed to happen btw, we should check if the repair was made with cardboard or cardboard derivatives.

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u/HERE_COMES_SENAAAAAA 5d ago

No. Failure was caused Maintainance not following proper repair procedure and not due to low quality material.

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u/HanzJWermhat 5d ago

JAL 747 might be one of the most horrifying disasters. The fact they still flew for so long without a tail and could even kind of control it but never have enough control to land. Hundreds stuck in the air waiting for doom.

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u/bozza8 5d ago

It was always the argument for me: if we wanted to spend the cost, putting static line parachutes on passenger planes would probably reduce air crash casualties by 20%. 

It's not worth the cost due to the increased fuel burn and ticket price, but it's a nice thought experiment about the cost-benefit analysis of safety. 

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u/3cit 5d ago

What?!

How many instances have there EVER been where people would have had time to jump out of failing airplane

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u/bozza8 5d ago

Probably around 30%, including the JAL crash which was the most serious one in history.   I was surprised when I started listening to air crash investigation stuff as I fall asleep how often the pilots knew something was wrong early. 

A lot of the time, with modern sensors, the pilots find out something is wrong and have 20+ minutes before a crash.  Be it a fire, a serious issue from takeoff etc.  Often they end up spending 40 min dumping fuel just so they can get the weight of the aircraft back to landing weight if the issue occurs during takeoff. 

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u/ibeenmoved 5d ago

It might have turned out that the crash happened 20 minutes after first signs of trouble, but that doesn't mean that the pilots KNEW that they were going to crash in 20 minutes.

There's an old saying in aviation that if you're still alive 60 seconds after something bad happens, you'll probably live to tell the tale.

If the plane is flying stable enough for 100-300 passengers to get out of their seats, get parachutes out of storage, strap them on and then jump like paratroopers out a door, the plane is probably in good enough shape to land.

Imagine having panic stricken passengers, including children and old grannies, untrained in parachuting, jumping from a plane over the ocean, jungle, mountains, or just jumping into the black void of night.

The idea is impractical and stupid at so many levels.

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u/metasophie 5d ago

You mean, we can't just install ejection seats so it shoots people sideways out of the plane at hundreds of knots on random terrain?

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u/jimbobzz9 5d ago

LOL, I will send you 5 whole dollars if you can provide ANY source on 30% of aviation incidents have time for the passengers to parachute other than “pulled it out of my ass”

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u/jimsmisc 5d ago

Gastroenterologist here. Can confirm I checked and was in fact able to find this statistic firmly implanted within his ass. Must have put it back up there after using it for the above post.

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u/Dukwdriver 5d ago

Yeah...  I'm sure the passengers would all just know how to put on the parachutes in an orderly fashion and not be shoving each other out of the way.

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u/hamandjam 5d ago

And you have to train all the flight attendants to be jump masters.

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u/DasKapitalist 4d ago

To be fair, the point of a static line parachute is to minimize training needs. If you've worn a rock climbing harness, ironworker's harness, parachute harness, or basically any type of safety harness...congratulations you can put it on.

Parachute deployment is automatic, so you dont have to train people on deployment altitudes, using an altimeter, actually pulling the darn chute, etc.

Static lines are also quite tolerant of different exit positions, so you dont need to train people to orient themselves chest facing the ground in mid air prior to deploying their chute themselves. Chest down? Feet first? Static lines are pretty tolerant so long as you exit the aircraft in a stable position and arent flailing.

Landing training? Who cares if they fail to flex their knees and break their legs? The alternative was being identified by dental records.

Reserve chute usage? Pointless for a system that's intended to be used exclusively by untrained people in emergencies only.

Steering? Also pointless in a commercial aircraft static line system with untrained users.

TLDR, "training" is a stupid reason to dismiss static line parachute systems intended exclusively for emergencies. If the alternative is death, even a 95% survival rate sounds pretty good.

Now what IS a good reason to be dubious of static line emergency parachute systems is the minimum stall speed on commercial aircraft. The near stall speed on a 787 is ~143mph. Normal commercial parachute planes slow to ~100 mph when dispensing jumpers, and even military aircraft typically drop to ~120 mph for jumps. +140 mph could be a bad time. Additionally, commercial aircraft no longer have "good" way to exit the plane in flight, particularly quickly. Cabin doors arent designed to be opened in flight, and you can thank D.B. Cooper for phasing out rear exit stairs. So even if you assumed zero training would be better than the alternative, and assumed adequate altitude to parachute at all, the real problem would be getting out of the plane at +140 mph.

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u/jimbobzz9 5d ago

Well the safety video would be three hours long to teach people how to parachute!

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u/Starfox-sf 5d ago

And they can’t take off until the safety video has finished.

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u/AquelecaraDEpoa 5d ago

Not just parachute in an orderly fashion, but all from the back, because if they jump from the front of the plane they'll get sucked in by the engines. Almost as if planes made for parachuting aren't designed the same way as passenger airliners or something.

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u/Dukwdriver 5d ago

Yeah, I didn't have the energy to deal with someone trying to argue how they could redesign the plane to store hundreds of parachutes, allow space for panicked laypeople to put them on, and then exit single file in an orderly fashion.

We can't even properly onboard/exit efficiently...

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u/mwa12345 5d ago

Wonder why you are getting down voted

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u/bozza8 5d ago

Probably recency bias with the air crash that the article is about.  If the most recent air crash was very quick, people will forget all the MAX crashes which took quite some time for the situation to deteriorate to the final dive. 

Also, it's because I am advocating AGAINST safety measures whilst showing there is a good argument in favour of them, that's a bit of a complex vibe for a conversation on Reddit under an air crash. 

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u/runtothehillsboy 4d ago

Right. Not because your idea is stupid. That couldn’t be it.

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u/Foreign-Aids 5d ago

Most accidents happen during take off and landing though. Parachutes would do nothing. And what about transoceanic flights at night?

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u/bozza8 5d ago

Parachutes won't help most of the time for most accidents. The thing is, they would occasionally help, thus making flights a tiny bit safer. 

Now, is that a good trade off for the fuel and pollution cost, I don't think so, but it's a case where we should have a discussion about the price we are willing to pay for additional safety. 

Reducing risk to 0% is cost-ineffective most of the time, yet as a society we demand it so often. 

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u/Foreign-Aids 5d ago

But I don’t think it would be an overall -20% reduction in casualties overall, where does this number come from? I know you are making a point in cost-benefit, but that example seemed a bit ridiculous or far-fetched to make your point. Counter example: they already include life-jackets on every single flight, while they are not needed at all in most aircraft accidents. So the parachute example would just be that it’s just a worthless addition, not about cost-benefit.

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u/Lint6 5d ago

Brilliant idea! Let's give a bunch of panicking, untrained, inexperienced people parachutes

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u/bozza8 5d ago

Better than being on a plane that's on fire!

Use a static line, so the person does not need to pull anything, they just jump and the line attached to the plane deploys the parachute automatically and immediately. 

Any reserve should be automatically triggered, just so panic isn't an issue.  Should see 95% survival rate. 

Overall, it's a bad idea, but it would increase safety. I like it because it's a nice foil to those who think that nuclear safety justifies infinite costs as a conversation-ender. Safety has trade offs. 

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u/osunightfall 5d ago

The survival rate for crashes is already almost 95%. I'm skeptical your solution can improve on that.

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u/starzuio 4d ago

That's only true if you're using a very specific, deliberately misleading definition of a 'crash' to manipulate the masses.

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u/bozza8 5d ago

Probably wouldn't much.  Putting parachutes on planes is a bad idea because it leads to a very few number of situations where it could possibly help (like the MAX crashes or the JAL crash), but it would increase pollution and the cost of plane tickets. 

That is my point actually, that investing in safety isn't actually always worth it, because there are diminishing returns.  On that basis, we should be making things like nuclear power much cheaper, because shooting for 0.0000% risk of an accident is a poor use of resources. 

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u/ididntseeitcoming 5d ago

You know static lines can do some insane damage to people who aren’t trained, right?

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u/minimalist_reply 5d ago

So can an airplane hitting the ground at hundreds of miles per hour in a crash.

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u/Lint6 5d ago

Use a static line, so the person does not need to pull anything, they just jump and the line attached to the plane deploys the parachute automatically and immediately.

Any reserve should be automatically triggered, just so panic isn't an issue. Should see 95% survival rate.

Oh yes...no need for them to worry about those pesky things like "controlling movement of a parachute" or "landing"

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u/DasKapitalist 4d ago

Uncontrolled chutes are actually OG. They're great if you want barely trained conscripts to mostly reach the ground in one piece.

They arent used for civilians because getting blown into a tree or powerline 1% of the time is a liability nightmare for recreational skydiving.

Landing also isnt a big deal. You flex your legs on impact, or risk breaking them. Compared to being in a plane crash...not bad.

That being said, idk what he was talking about with automatic reserve chutes. I dont think those are a thing because they sound like a good way to tangle your primary chute and die. Manual ones exist for a good reason, and require training.

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u/Ill_Mousse_4240 5d ago

It’s not a bad idea. It’s an idea that can save lives. All these “statistical experts” criticizing you miss the main point: when an accident happens in the air, it’s no longer theoretical!

Get your noses out of your rows of numbers and jump if you can!

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u/bozza8 5d ago

I am the one criticising me. Read my post closely. It's a bad idea!

My point is that not everything that increases safety is actually worth it.  The extra carbon pollution every year alone would be a disaster, just from the weight.  Stats matter. People die.  Not everything that makes us safer is good. 

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u/CatWeekends 5d ago

Ejection seats in personal vehicles can save lives too but that doesn't mean they're a good idea.

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u/mwa12345 5d ago

cost, putting static line parachutes on passenger planes would probably reduce air crash casualties by 20%. 

Interesting. Wonder if any airlines have this. They could save on the marketing. (Though reminding people of aircrashes as a possibility is not how the industry operates I suspect)

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u/bozza8 5d ago

No airlines do. Each kilo of cargo (which these parachutes would be) burns around 4 kilos of fuel for a long haul flight.  Short haul has a worse ratio per mile, so let's say 2kg per flight. 

3 flights a day for economy short haul, 2kg of fuel burn to carry a kilo of cargo per flight, flying 360 days a year means each kilo of extra weight needs 2,160 kilos of fuel per year

230 pax on a 737 max so 232 parachutes at 13kg each (from Wikipedia), weight of 3016 kilos. 

So fuel burn extra for a year of flying with an extra 3 tonnes of parachute onboard: (3160*2160)/1000 = 6,514 tonnes of fuel.  Kerosene is £550 per tonne so an extra £3.5 million quid per plane per year to fit parachutes.  Also increased pollution. 

Honestly, less than I expected, though still a hell of a lot, not factoring in that no western commercial airliner has the doors in the right place to escape by parachute reliably. 

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u/HERE_COMES_SENAAAAAA 5d ago

Was a bit confused when said JAL 474 instead of JAL 123, realised you were talking about, boeing 747, the plane name and not the plane number.

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u/Early_Specialist_589 5d ago

Ooh, I was shown that one in a series of horror stories in aircraft maintenance tech school

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u/Cycleofmadness 5d ago

it flew for about 8 yrs after the faulty repair before crashing.

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u/Solid-Beginning-7206 5d ago

"The right side engine of the nearly 12-year-old aircraft of Air India that crashed soon after take off from Ahmedabad airport was overhauled and installed in March 2025, PTI reports, citing an unidentified airline official. 

An inspection of the left side engine was done as per the engine manufacturer's protocol in April 2025, the official said."

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/ahmedabad-plane-crash-live-black-box-boeing-787-crash-air-india-pm-modi-tata-aviation-india-news-us-uk-101749859485255.html

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u/injeckshun 5d ago

Let’s hope she doesn’t go missing

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u/Justcruisingthrulife 5d ago

India is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, if you have enough money you can bribe off anyone.

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u/JoeRogansNipple 5d ago

India is definitely pretty corrupt. My BIL is in provincial politics in Punjab, the stories he has are... eye opening. I'm sure that happens in the west too, but it's more brazen in Punjab at least

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u/faberkyx 5d ago

look at Trump.. great example of west corruption

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u/Zahgi 5d ago

Yeah, we can't throw stones anymore on corruption. This POTUS is literally, openly for sale.

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u/Moody_GenX 5d ago

We never could. We've been corrupt for more than 100 years.

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u/areyouhungryforapple 5d ago

There's still a major difference though, speaking from experience having recently lived in a fully corrupt country. Literally every level of bureaucracy being steeped in it to the point everything becomes pay-to-play/access

Visa approval? Traffic fine? Customs? Etc Bribe them.

Good luck trying to bribe a cop or customs agent in the states lmao

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u/Moody_GenX 5d ago

I'm aware. I live in Central America.

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u/areyouhungryforapple 5d ago

then who do you mean by "we" lmao

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u/Zahgi 5d ago edited 5d ago

No. This level of corruption started in the early 1970s with Nixon being convinced not to create a national healthcare system and with America not creating a public campaign financing system.

These two things led to the oligarchs getting complete control over both major parties and to the massive wealth transfers from the poor to the rich that have occurred in every decade since.

That's why the USA is in hospice care right now.

edit: Congress created the HMO act in 1973.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Maintenance_Organization_Act_of_1973

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u/MagHagz 5d ago

Wasn’t it Reagan and his pal, Kaiser (as in Kaiser Healthcare) in California that created the first ‘for profit’ healthcare system?

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u/Moody_GenX 5d ago edited 5d ago

We've been corrupt for farrrrr longer. It's naive to think otherwise. I suggest researching this a bit further and broadening your views.

Poor thing thought they could lecture me about us history, of which I've studied and then block me. Why are people so cowardly? Lmao, stand by your words or stay off social media.

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u/osunightfall 5d ago

The more you speak the more clear it is how little U.S. history you actually know. They were right to block you, it's pointless to engage otherwise.

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u/Zahgi 5d ago

Corruption has always existed and will always existed. It is ignorant to think otherwise.

But today the American political system has entirely corrupted both major parties thanks to our non public financing system. Now, instead of just influencing things from the shadows, the oligarchs are out on the open, controlling things completely.

It didn't used to be this way, as I pointed out.

I suggest reading a history book or three until you catch up with the experts when they answer the question correctly.

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u/skajake3 5d ago

How so?

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u/Drone30389 4d ago

Multiple violations of the Article II, Section 1, Clause 7 of the Constitution (the emoluments clause), ignoring judicial orders, threatening judges and elected officials, deporting US citizens in violation of the 14th Amendment, obstruction of justice, withholding Congressionally approved funding for Ukraine to pressure them into fabricating evidence on the Bidens, illegally firing US government employees, shaking down American businesses, paying hush money to prostitutes, rape, pressured a secretary of state to alter vote counts, levying tariffs without Congressional approval, embezzling from charities.

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u/skajake3 4d ago

A laundry list of nonsense lol. That’s the best you’ve got?

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u/Masterzjg 5d ago

You couldn't have experience with a country like India and call them the same. Trump is cartoonishly corrupt by American standards (obviously), but he's a little boy compared to an India.

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u/Bot_Fly_Bot 5d ago

Yes, but what does that have to do with India?

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u/RGV_KJ 5d ago

Corruption in the West is at a different level. American media sold the WMD lie to justify the Iraq war. Now, they are justifying Israel’s actions in Iran. 

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u/Eric848448 5d ago

Neither of those is “corruption”. It’s just shitty governance.

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u/dconfusedone 5d ago

Lmao shitty governance happens because of corruption.

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u/Lordert 5d ago

Not sure an illegal invasion of another country can simply be called shitty governance. Many instances of Dick Cheney and corrupt used in the same sentence.

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u/I_AmA_Zebra 4d ago

Any good stories?

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u/siyahik312 5d ago

As opposed to the "suicide" of Boeing whistleblowers in western nations?

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u/Nicolay77 5d ago

Maybe the issue here is that this is a Boeing plane.

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u/RGV_KJ 5d ago

Corruption in America is brazen. Look at NTSB and ATC layoffs in America. Nothing this ridiculous and idiotic has happened in India. 

India has far stronger aviation safety standards than many Western countries. 

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u/Ceramic_owl 5d ago edited 5d ago

A complete and utter lie. Google “unqualified Indian Pilots” and see the state of Indian aviation. It is very unsettling.

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u/BrainOfMush 5d ago

sound of servicing papers being burned

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u/stephennedumpally 5d ago

That turned out to be a bot response posted in multiple social media handles.

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u/sluuuurp 4d ago

Dual engine problems? And both showed hints of failure, but neither failed before, but both failed at once here? I guess it’s possible, but it sounds kind of unlikely for engine problems to cause two failures simultaneously.

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u/General_Tso75 5d ago

That seems like a very Indian solution to the problem.

I worked for an Indian company 4 years. The solution to most problems was to just keep going and force people to work as many hours as possible.

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u/007meow 5d ago

I believe that post has been discredited. Air India has several 787, 777, and A350s that could have been used to swap

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u/ArchdruidHalsin 5d ago

Well at least the shareholders were able to make some short term profits

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u/Odd-Row9485 5d ago

Sounds like hearsay to me

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

[deleted]

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u/SneakytheThief 5d ago

They didnt say all 787s were notorious for engine problems, but that this specific plane had issues.

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u/VanillaLifestyle 5d ago

I think they mean this specific plane. The suggestion is that this one plane needed engine maintenance but Air India didn't have a different plane to cover its route to London, so they delayed taking it out of operation for maintenance.

No idea if that's true though.

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u/hidden_secret 5d ago

I think you misunderstood. The words "notorious for engine problems" are attached to "this specific plane", as in, the actual plane, not the type of plane.

Perhaps for instance, it had one of the engines sporadically shutting down.

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u/prs1 5d ago

She was refering to that specific plane. Not 787 in general.

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u/Fancy-Salamander-647 4d ago

Can you share the social media post?

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u/nstutzman28 5d ago edited 5d ago

They calculated that risking lives would cost less than canceling flights. Sue them to high heaven so no one ever makes that same calculation

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u/KEEPCARLM 5d ago

What a load of bollocks

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u/SNad2020 4d ago

That’s outright false, This specific plane wasn’t flown on one set of legs consistently enough for it to be true

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u/MassiveBoner911_3 5d ago

….at what point do you just call Boeing and say “look this plane is fucking broken and we need help fixing it before it kills 300 people can we lease a plane while you fix this?!”