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Comment by justboxing | Hacker News Reader

Just saw the pics of the damage on the twitter thread linked-to in the article. See below.

https://twitter.com/shukla_tarun/status/1050595274869993474

Looks quite severe.

I'm impressed the plane flew for 3 hours without getting destablized and crashing....

Air India has the worst safety reputation in India, and several accidents / incidents. I flew Spice Jet a few times over the last few weeks when I was there visiting. Spice Jet is like India's Virgin America. Service was excellent and I did not experience any issues while flying.

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The most surprising part is, trichy to mumbai takes hardly 1hr flight time. What caused them to take 4hrs?

In 4hrs, they could have landed in Dubai itself easily

Being Indian, I agree with statement about AirIndia. I would never fly in AirIndia even if the ticket price is too low, laughably they usually cost way above than any other competitors.

Looks like they went halfway across the Arabian Sea before turning around, strange... https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/ix611#1e2da319

What caused them to retun in half way? Report says Trichy airport informed pilot about posssible damage to plane. Pilot ignored it saying everything is green.

What happened in 4hrs to divert back to Mumbai is still mystery. Will be interesting to see full report

Is it possible that Dubai refused to let them land with a flyable but potentially pretty broken plane?

Do you think it's even theoretically possible that an air traffic controller will say "looks like you might be having trouble with your plane... we're not going to allow you to land here. Go elsewhere"

No. If the pilot declares an emergency the pilot is in command, effectively.

It is much more likely that Air India dispatch wanted the airplane repaired at a base where they have maintenance.

I also suspect it was better for the crew to end their last airline flight as crew in their home country...

A few years ago, was on a Delta flight out of Detroit to Boston. Over halfway to Boston, we turned back as the airplane had a maintenance issue that Delta wanted to deal with at DTW rather than BOS. (They do have a permanent presence at BOS, but a larger one at DTW.)

It would be the opposite, every major airport will be open for a plane in trouble.

Sure. I just thought that they weren't in as much trouble that they needed to land immediately, but could have caused some trouble after landing.

And even non-major ones! I hear you can even land at an air force base in the US as a civilian private pilot without any negative consequences, providing you have declared emergency.

Yes, if you have nowhere else to go, but it's a last resort and there's definitely a high chance of fines or more serious consequences, especially if it's an active base with sensitive material or operations.

I'm not aware of any more serious consequence having ever happened for a legit emergency, and I am aware of fatal accidents where private pilots were e.g. out of fuel and didn't realize the AFB was an option even though they could've made it.

You know, it's funny, you save the plane, then you get second guessed about whether you used air Force resources wisely, which can have serious repercussions. Or as a professional, have consequences to your career.

It is a crap shoot, based on optics, and partially based on real data. You have to hope your investigator, or boss, sees the data the same way you did....

You made the opposite choice, lose your airframe and your life, and then you should 'clearly' have made the other decision, because the data's in...

No, that almost certainly wouldn't happen. If you declare, you're basically given cart blanche provided you can reasonably justify your actions, and if an AFB is closer than a civilian airport, for example, its absolutely okay to land there (though you should probably give them a call first saying you're landing). Your first priority is not dying; legal consequences don't matter when you're in that situation, and the FAA knows that. If breaking a law will save you they'd rather you do that than die, and they almost certainly won't punish you for it.

Nobody is arguing that it's not ok, but consequences always exist regardless of conditions.

In this case, it's not about the FAA. An military base can choose not to prosecute once they investigate, but don't assume that they are just fine with strangers landing. Emergencies can be staged and, as stated, if there are sensitive combat and intel operations ongoing then it will be a serious incident.

This is no different than calling search and rescue to save your life, and then getting a bill afterwards. Still an emergency, and still has consequences.

No. That's really not how anything works.

If they went to burn the fuel, going somewhere and returning is easier than circling for 4 hours.

Easier, but more dangerous; surely not protocol.

You would prefer to stay near an airport, rather than far away over the sea.

And you would want to stay at low altitude, where you can burn the fuel much, much faster as well as divert more quickly if anything went south.

Nothing gets better at FL360 in this situation if your intention all along was to divert.

No.

1. You would not want to ascend to flight level 360 (particularly with a damaged plane).

2. You would not want to leave the vicinity of an airport (particularly with a damaged plane).

"Being Indian, I agree with statement about AirIndia. I would never fly in AirIndia even if the ticket price is too low, laughably they usually cost way above than any other competitors."

Since I have flown with Air India, would you mind being more specific? Are the statistics? My flights were okay. Okay, zero status miles credited at Star Alliance and a bit stingy with alcohol on board. But food and service was good, plane looked well maintained.

Please tell me more.

I used to be a government employee and was required to fly Air India so I flew it a fair bit. Personally, the flying bit was not that different from others. Their website was a nightmare to book on, usually I found them generous with alcohol on international flights, but sample size is small here. Their miles were hard to use, too many conditions. Staff was a bit low on professionalism. Saw a couple of fights between flight attendants.

"Their website was a nightmare to book on"

I book 90% of my flights on Vayama, so no problem here. I once decided to book direct only on airline websites to make a possible ticket change easier and cheaper. The one time I tried it I had serious trouble. VPN blocked by airline, based in China, google captcha required which requires a VPN etc. I tried the booking process 4 times until I bought a ticket on Vayama. Later got an email from the airline ("your ticket got issued") so I ended up with two tickets for the same flight. I emailed them and they reimbursed the money. It was Sri Lanka airlines.

> Saw a couple of fights between flight attendants.

In flight entertainment.

I had a flight around 2 AM on night, and man, the crew were so sleepy. The crew who made announcement during landing was close to yawning. I am highly suspicious they were taking nap on the back of the plane.

I've flown on them thrice. All three flights were delayed, even when it was a 35 minute flight from Jaipur to Delhi (supposed to land at 9:00pm, landed at 11pm).

When I last checked, their website literally did not work (clicking the booking button after entering your details took you to a 404 not found page)

It's a disaster of an airline, especially when cheaper options such as Indigo are way more punctual

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/air-india-bedbugs-in-busines...

They had to expend the fuel as dumping is not always an option, when you have a tail strike you don't take risks at landing, consuming the fuel to reduce weight and minimize the risk of fire is a basic option.

Going to 36000 feet was taking a massive risk.

I don’t think we have enough information yet to establish whether excessive weight was a factor.

On the other hand being higher buys you more time to correct for problems when they occur.

It buys you more time when the engines fail and you turn into a glider. If structural failure occurs, it just takes you longer to fall to the ground.

Not really. If there was a decompression the very first thing that the pilot would do is immediately descend to 10,000 feet. The aircraft is one giant pressure vessel with wings strapped to the sides. Taking that up into thin atmosphere when it might be compromised is a bad idea.

Also, in a plane that cannot dump such as the 737, to burn off fuel one would prefer to stay in the thicker lower part of the troposphere. Going to altitude not only risks decompression, but it actually preserves the remaining fuel due to lower drag.

That is not a maneuver a pilot with a known-damaged aircraft would make to burn off fuel.

Fun fact: Air India is a state owned airline that has been bailed out with tax payer money multiple times. Attempts to sell/privatize the airline has failed too so far.

The flight is from Trichy to Dubai, so they were on course.

Is this a hit and run with an airliner?

I see some wires coming out, they can't possibly have not noticed, they must have lost some instruments, surely some warning lighted up in the cockpit.

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