AIUI, the ram air turbine (RAT) deploys when there is no power being generated by the plane’s engines; it’s an emergency device, to provide power to critical flight systems in such a situation.
As noted, if the RAT was deployed, it likely means that both of the plane’s engines had failed.
The ram air turbine deploys automatically in the event of the loss of power from all of the usual sources. It’s a generator-like doodad with a big propeller on it that pops out from the belly of the aircraft and is then spun by the airflow. It provides electrical and hydraulic power to run the cockpit instruments and to get the controls working.
This is not a 787 but enough to get the idea…
As they say in improv class… “Yes, and…”
The bizjet I’m on now has some sophisticated anti-stall measures, somewhat similar to Airbus system logic. And that system logic is pretty complex. As just one example, the aircraft configuration matters. You don’t want the system automatically executing a stall recovery when you’re trying to land. So the system has to consider that the flaps are out and the engine thrust is reduced.
However…
Suppose you’re doing a no-flap landing because of a malfunction? Now the system has to be able to take that into account to, usually by pilot selection of a “flaps override” function. This tells the system not to look at the flap settings as it considers the airspeed / stall situation.
Lots of if / then statements in how a stall warning / mitigation system functions.
I won’t speculate on the India crash yet. Not enough info.
India’s equivalent of the FAA is requiring increased inspections on this type airplane:
If that was literally true it would be nearly impossible to recover from a stall. It’s certainly not true for small planes, where a routine part of pilot training is to intentionally stall the plane then put it into a spin, and get the student to recover. Nose-down to regain airspeed and control is the standard recovery procedure. The situation where you do lose control of the elevators is the rare tailplane stall, which is why they’re so dangerous.
Stall training is a routine part of student flying, but spins are not. At one time spins were required, but that was changed in the 50s when they realized more people were being killed than were likely saved by the training.
You can obtain spin training, but even airline pilots aren’t required to go through it. The only FAA license requiring spins is the instructor certificate.
When I went through student pilot training in a Piper Cherokee, spin recovery was part of it at this particular school. The instructor made me pull up at low power until the plane stalled, which was uncomfortable enough, and then slammed hard on the rudder to start a spin. It’s scary as hell and I can see why if’s out of favour, but this school did it. Of course we were way up at a safe altitude for this exercise.
Late 60s training for me had stalls in the Aeronca Champ several times both before and after soloing. Power on, nose to the sky, Stan would kick the rudder one way or the other. Then a couple of power off stalls, same routine. I’m sure the golfers on the course below enjoyed whatever the hell they were witnessing.
It never occurred to me to think what this sort of training exercise looked like from the ground. If anyone was watching it must have been pretty concerning! During a spin/stall the plane is literally out of control and falling pretty much straight down.
Here are more details on the survivor, with some expert speculation on how he survived.
tl;dr: he was next to an emergency exit so didn’t have far to go, either the door popped open or the fuselage tore apart near the door providing an opening, his seat was at the front edge of the wing (a strong area that probably crumpled less), there was open space in front of him so he was less likely to be crushed or knocked unconscious in the crash, and he was incredibly lucky.
What I’m curious about is that - regardless of how the fuselage crumpled or gave him a path to escape - the plane had a massive fireball, and the inferno was fed by a huge amount of fuel since the plane had only just taken off and was fully fueled. How does this guy not have 3rd-degree burns all over his body? Even if he weren’t directly in the flames themselves, there should have been extreme heat even just being near the fireball. I remember watching a firefighting video where there was an inferno that was smaller than what this airliner likely had, and people were fleeing in burnt agony even when being some distance from the fireball when it erupted.
Presumably during the extremely brief period between the time the airplane crashed/stopped moving and the fuel exploded he was either thrown clear or was able to run sufficiently far away to escape being burned alive.
I’ve not been in a 787 yet thought that seat 11A would be the first row of either business or regular class and have the door next to it. Typically, on sites where you can “check in” early those seats go fast (for a normal landing / quick exit) yet you have to say you are in good physical shape (dunno if being tall is a requirement yet if you want the legroom…) and could operate the door in case of emergency. So that would be a really good reason for his fortune.
As for the “stall testing” that of course is initiated at a high enough altitude that total screw-ups can be corrected by the trainer. I know in the case of the “Gimli Glider” that pilot had significant experience in flying (of course much smaller) gliders and plenty of altitude and I want to say Sully taking off from LGA also had experience with gliders though he had much less altitude.
I reckon the only other news from the “Indian FAA” was the destination was Gatwick and not Heathrow. Yet I suppose if any of the secondary airports in/around London can handle the landing of a gigantic jet it would be Gatwick.
Just a little more context on how pilots are trained on stalls…
When you get to jets, you pretty much never actually stall the real aircraft. That’s left mostly to test pilots. I’ve brought a biz jet close to a stall on a maintenance flight, but that’s it.
But in the simulator you do it all. We drill different types of stalls intensively. But of course, the idea is to never let it come close. In thousands of hours in jets I’ve never had a stick shaker warning. It takes some real mishandling or an extraordinary mishap, assuming decent pilot skills. We also do a lot of unusual attitude training, meaning we recover from extreme nose-high or nose-low attitudes, combined with high bank angles.
This is before you consider all the automation and safeguards incorporated into the aircraft. In my current biz jet you have to really work to stall the plane. In fact in the sim we have to deliberately disable some of the automation to allow us to practice.
All this to say, I don’t know what happened in India. Could’ve been a stall, but we’ll see.
I just went to Seatguru and looked at the seat map for the Air India 787. That seat is rhe very first one in the main cabin with a bulkhead in front. I read that his brother was in 11J, the window seat on the right side of the plane.
And, yes, the emergency exit is right there.
Wiki says the 787 has been “in service” for about 14 years, which makes it a bit more mature than the 747 I flew from JFK to SNN (Ireland) in 1977. And in the early 1990’s I flew between LAX and SYD four times (and as I was going to Melbourne it still seems odd that the same plane would make that leg of the trip).
Since the 787 seems to exist for “Longreach” flights pilots are well-trained for heavily laden (both in passengers and jet fuel) takeoffs?
I agree the odds are low but they made it to 600 feet so it feels like a multiple event scenario. Also, many fatal aircraft accidents are the result of multiple events that when combined are disastrous.
Yes, pilots practice takeoffs at max weight. Many sim curriculums include “high and hot” day, in which we simulate heavy aircraft weights combined with high temps, which degrade performance. There’s also classroom work on calculating takeoff and landing performance in those conditions.
One assumes that Indian pilots are well versed in high and hot operations. But I know nothing about their particular training or reputation.
I’m wondering what could make the power fail suddenly as the jet took off. I guess we’ll learn more from the black boxes.
In theory, at least, the odds of multiple events with a common cause that could lead to a catastrophic failure have to be less probable than 1 event per billion flight hours.
Each independent event that could be catastrophic (as in, there’s no mechanism for one failure to create the second failure) also has to have a demonstrated probability of less than one event per billion flight hours. The odds of two happening simultaneously are astronomically improbable (the definitions stop at “extremely improbable”.
This doesn’t account for pilot or maintenance errors, though.