Inside the flight simulator with commercial pilot Pushkar Shelar
- Pilot Pushkar Shehlar noted that multiple factors could explain the crash, pending investigation results.
- The aircraft flew at a low altitude for 32 seconds before crashing into a building.
- Mr Shehlar emphasized that low altitude increases difficulty in recovering from sudden power loss.
NDTV spoke to a commercial airline pilot inside the cockpit of a flight simulator to get an insight into what could have gone wrong with Air India's Boeing 787 Dreamliner just before it crashed in Gujarat's Ahmedabad on Thursday, killing 241 on board and 10 on the ground.
Commercial airline pilot Pushkar Shelar, who sat on the co-pilot's seat inside the passenger aircraft simulator, told NDTV that while the investigation is going on and any speculation would be misleading, there are many possibilities on the cause of the crash, from a serious technical fault to a complete loss of power to bird activity.
"We really cannot say that such and such is the reason why it happened until the investigation is out," Mr Shelar told NDTV.
The pilot said that usually it is difficult to control an aircraft at very low altitude in the event of a sudden crisis.
A CCTV camera at Ahmedabad airport showed that the Dreamliner involved in the aviation accident also flew at a low altitude for only 32 seconds before it crashed into a hostel for doctors of a medical college.
"The altitude they reached after they took off was close to 500-600 feet. So at that altitude, if you have complete power loss, then it becomes really difficult to recover from that," Mr Shelar said. "Every pilot is well trained to do this [recover the aircraft]. But the aircraft was so close to the ground, it must have been difficult for them [pilot and co-pilot] to control."
The pilot said there is not much room or "time to think" if the aircraft is too close to the ground. "You have to react quickly. That's how things work."
He also explained what flaps in an aircraft do. Some aviation experts have suggested incorrect flap settings as one of the possibilities. Such incidents have happened in the West.
"We have flaps before take-off and during landing. Basically what they do is they generate a lot of lift which helps us in getting airborne within a shorter distance. During landing also, we use flaps to slow down the aircraft. It's a part on the wing that extends downwards," Mr Shelar said.
He said the position of the flaps are manually set, and it is determined using weather conditions and aircraft weight, among other factors.
He said only the investigation can tell if it was a rare incident of both engines failing.
The Ahmedabad airport CCTV footage showed a very short flight of 32 seconds from the time the landing gears left the runway to the time of impact.
Aviation experts have also said the final moments of the flight showed the aircraft either struggled to generate thrust or lift. The exact cause behind the crash would be known after a few months following a detailed air crash investigation, they said.
