Flight 171: 'They only had a few seconds. There were no good options'

An engine failure or pilot error? Questions are mounting as the Air India disaster investigation begins.

- Jon Ungoed-Thomas

In the seconds before flight AI171 crashed on Thursday, killing 241 passengers and crew, Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and his co-pilot would have been bombarded with alerts.

A ground proximity system alert on the Air India jet would have warned: “Don’t sink. Don’t sink. Don’t sink.” Systems warnings would have lit up the cockpit instrument panel.

“Mayday, mayday,” was the final message sent by Sabharwal as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner stopped climbing and hurtled towards the ground. It was the world’s worst aviation disaster for a decade and a devastating setback for crisis-hit Boeing.

The decisions on the flight deck - and the reactions of the captain and co-pilot, Clive Kunder - during just 30 seconds of what should have been a flight of more than nine hours on the plane from Ahmedabad, in India’s western state of Gujarat, to London Gatwick, will now be a key focus of the investigation launched into the crash. A black box was recovered from the crash site on Friday, India's civil aviation minister confirmed.

In a briefingyesterday, Samir Kumar Sinha, a secretary for India’s aviation ministry, said the flight had reached about 650ft after takeoff before it crashed into buildings at Meghani Nagar, less than two miles from the airport. Air accident investigators from the UK have arrived in India and are supporting the investigation team.

Aviation experts said the video footage of the flight from takeoff to crash suggest there may have been a lack of power required for a successful takeoff. The landing gear was not retracted, and one possible explanation is that the required engine power was not available to operate the hydraulics.