Panel set to review air safety

More than two weeks after the deadly crash of an Air India plane that killed all but one of the 242 people on board, investigators and the airline are studying possible dual engine failure as a scenario that prevented the Boeing 787 jet from staying airborne.

- MIHIR MISHRA

MORE THAN TWO weeks after the deadly crash of an Air India plane that killed all but one of the 242 people on board, investigators and the airline are studying possible dual engine failure as a scenario that prevented the Boeing 787 jet from staying airborne.

Pilots from the airline reenacted the doomed aircraft's parameters in a flight simulator, including with the landing gear deployed and the wing flaps retracted, and found those settings alone didn't cause a crash, according to people familiar with the investigation.

The result, alongside the previous discovery that an emergency-power turbine deployed seconds before impact, has reinforced the focus on a technical failure as one possible cause, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing non-public deliberations.