Questions have been raised about the safety of Air India flight A171 after a video taken onboard the craft yesterday showed ‘nothing working’ before takeoff.
The flight was meant to land at Gatwick Airport last night, but crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad in India, killing 241, with the exception of one sole survivor.
A new video taken inside what appears to be flight A171 shows a passenger filming his seat back screen, mentioning that the air conditioning wasn’t working.
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‘There are so many people here,’ the passenger observed. ‘The TVs aren’t working at all.
‘Nothing is working. Not even the light is working,’ he added.
The video comes after the sole survivor of the crash, 40-year-old British man Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, said the lights flickered before the plane crashed.
It’s still unclear what caused the fatal crash, but a warning made by a Boeing engineer turned whistleblower has resurfaced after the deadly accident.
Last year, Sam Salehpour said Boeing ‘took shortcuts’ when making the Dreamliner jets, which he said could become ‘catastrophic’.
Federal authorities say they’re investigating Boeing after a whistleblower repeatedly raised concerns with two widebody jet models and claimed the company retaliated against him.
His complaint reportedly focused on two issues, which he said could ‘dramatically’ reduce the life of the plane.
“I am doing this not because I want Boeing to fail, but because I want it to succeed and prevent crashes from happening,’ he told CNN in 2024. ‘The truth is, Boeing can’t keep going the way it is. It needs to do a little bit better, I think.’
Air India’s safety record explained
Air India was founded in 1932 and has had a number of years of safe flights, but many instances of accidents as well.
In 2020, an Air India repatriation flight overran the runway and lost control, killing 21 people.
In 2010, Air India Flight 812 overshot the runway and burst into flames, killing 158.
Recent analysis by the PA news agency found it was the worst airline for delays to flights from UK airports last year, with planes taking off by an average of more than 45 minutes later than scheduled.
The airline has gained a poor reputation for delays and cancellations in recent years, partly caused by a lack of funds to purchase spare aircraft parts, which led to some of its fleet being grounded.
In recent years, however, Air India was acquired by Tata Group from the Indian government after racking up billions of pounds of losses.
The airline’s UK operations are at Birmingham, Gatwick and Heathrow, with routes to a number of Indian cities such as Ahmedabad, Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.
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