India Tragedy: Boeing Plane Crashes Into Canteen While Medical Students Were Eating

In the air disaster, one passenger miraculously survived after successfully parachuting from the diving plane.

Author: German Galkin

Picture shows: Indian Airlines aircraft crash site in Ahmedabad.

The air disaster that occurred on June 12 in India may be the most tragic incident this month. When people die in traffic accidents, we are already shocked, especially when multiple people are involved. However, the severity of a plane crash far exceeds that of ordinary traffic accidents. This flight of Indian Airlines carried 242 people: 230 passengers and 12 crew members, including 169 Indian citizens, 53 British citizens, 7 Portuguese citizens, and 1 Canadian citizen.

The plane took off for London at 13:17 local time and crashed shortly after takeoff.

The Consulate General in Mumbai said that according to existing information, there seems to be no Russian citizens on the crashed plane, which may be the only good news. According to preliminary data from the Indian police, the plane crashed on the roof of the doctors' dormitory building in the Meghani Nagar area near the airport, and debris also affected civilian houses. The crash location, Meghani, is a densely populated area.

It is worth noting that Ahmedabad Police Commissioner Jyandhra Singh Malik initially claimed that all 242 people on board had died, but fortunately, this statement was later proven incorrect.

40-year-old British citizen Vishwakumar Ramesh was sitting in seat 11A in the front of the plane. Reports say he managed to parachute to safety before the plane crashed. The police commissioner then confirmed: "Survivors were found in the hospital and are receiving treatment."

The search and rescue operation at the crash site is still ongoing, and it is unclear whether there are any other survivors.

However, it is known that some people on the ground have also been killed, with at least 20 medical students unfortunately losing their lives.

Shocking images have already surfaced on social media: fragments of the fuselage and tail protruding from the damaged building, and through the large cracks in the canteen wall, you can see leftover meal plates on the indoor benches inside.

This unfortunate flight was operated by a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, originally destined for London Gatwick Airport.

Local television stations reported that the initial speculation about the cause of the crash might be bird strike. Birds usually fly at low altitudes, and this passenger plane crashed immediately after taking off from Ahmedabad Airport in Gujarat, India.

However, this is just an initial guess.

Russian aviation safety expert Alexander Romanov believes that even experienced pilots could make operational errors: "The engines of this type of aircraft have long service lives and reliable performance. Judging from the configuration I saw, they might have been attempting to climb. Perhaps they did not retract the landing gear to cool the brake discs or forgot to retract the landing gear, or perhaps the flaps should have been retracted. This caused the aircraft to rapidly lose lift, making it unable to fly at its current speed, and thus began to dive, eventually crashing almost directly into the ground."

Picture shows: survivor of the air disaster.

Air experts interviewed by the Daily Mail put forward other speculations. For example, the plane may have suddenly lost power during the "critical phase" after takeoff or encountered a sudden change in wind direction. John R. Davidson, former U.S. Air Force pilot and editor of Felons Assistance, stated that from the initial flight tracking data, the plane seemed to reach the takeoff speed but did not reach the required altitude, indicating "perhaps late pull-up or loss of control shortly after takeoff." He believed that there could be multiple reasons for the crash: thrust or engine characteristic issues, aircraft overweight, improper trim, or incorrect flap settings, or even more serious malfunctions affecting the aircraft's climbing ability.

Former senior pilot Captain Solab Bartnagar told the local TV channel NDTV that the crash scene "looks like multiple bird strikes causing both engines to fail simultaneously."

Aerospace experts on forums said that sounds heard at the scene indicate that the ram air turbine (RAT) — an emergency wind-driven turbine — was activated shortly before the crash.

According to Flightradar 24 flight tracking data, the plane only climbed to 190.5 meters before starting to descend, and the transponder signal disappeared seconds after takeoff.

The Indian Civil Aviation Authority said that the distressed signal was sent out by the aircraft minutes before the crash.

Reports from the Daily Mail and others showed that from the initial footage of the plane's descent, the Boeing aircraft descended controllably with a larger nose-down angle, and the landing gear was already deployed.

It is worth adding that the weather was clear in the crash area at the time, with minimal wind speed. According to The Times of India, the head of the Indian Aviation Accident Investigation Bureau has led the investigation team to the scene.

Currently, the site is undergoing debris clearance.

Miracle Seat 11A: Of the 242 people, two survived when the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner flying to London crashed.

This Boeing 787 Dreamliner crash is the first accident since the model entered service in December 2009.

According to the latest data, this air disaster has resulted in over 290 deaths.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7515262742589948428/

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