00:00Hello and welcome to this special broadcast on OneIndia on the deadly air crash in Ahmedabad.
00:07Mirza Faizan, an aerospace scientist and aviation expert, joins us all the way from Dallas, Texas in the United States.
00:17Mr. Faizan, thank you so much for speaking to OneIndia. How are you doing today?
00:21Thank you so much, Mr. Pankaj. Thank you for having me. I'm doing fine.
00:25Although it's devastating news, we have got early morning here in the Dallas time.
00:30But otherwise, we are fine.
00:32Right. So what are your initial observations?
00:38Because it must have been, you know, you must have received the information early morning while this part of the world was active.
00:45What do you find? Where do you see the lacuna?
00:48So, yes, today morning I was, I actually caught up with this news, fortunate news.
00:54And I got an opportunity to look at the footage of this aircraft taking off and within a couple of seconds crashing down.
01:04And my first instance is propulsion.
01:08There is an issue with the propulsion system or that is, you know, in layman's terms, the engine system.
01:14Right. Because the aircraft before it crashed down, it is in a control flight.
01:18So there is no issue with the control systems.
01:21So the issue is with the propulsion systems.
01:23It looks like both the engines somehow lost power.
01:26There could be various reasons I can list down.
01:29But both the engines somehow lost power.
01:31And because of that, the pilot could not steer the plane or give height, you know, altitude to the plane.
01:41Right.
01:41There is one footage, I'm sure you have seen it.
01:45It's from the CCTV of the airstrip, the runway.
01:50And it shows a dust cloud coming up right before the takeoff, when it finishes the takeoff strip, when it takes off.
02:00So there is a dust cloud.
02:02It's not generally that we see or is it the some mechanism that happens in every flight?
02:11So, I mean, when an aircraft is taking off, it is sucking immense amount of air from the front and pushing it back.
02:21Right.
02:21That is the whole mechanism of a jet engine.
02:24So it could be because of that.
02:26That could be one reason.
02:27Wind shear is another weather phenomenon which could lead to a crash like this.
02:36But if there's a wind shear, I did not see the weather which could result in a wind shear.
02:42And if there's a wind shear, the weather radar or the weather man in Ahmedabad could have identified that and they would have alerted the pilot.
02:53So I think this could be just dust being, you know, disturbed with the air being sunk by the jet engine.
03:00Right.
03:01Right.
03:03In this scenario, Mr. Faizan, how much scope of human error do you see or a technical glitch?
03:12So now human error could be from different aspects.
03:16It could be, was that a pilot error?
03:19Was it a maintenance error?
03:21So was it an error in advising the pilot from the air traffic control about the weather error?
03:29Prima facie, it does not appear to me that this is a pilot error because the pilot was trying everything possible, you know, to guide the aircraft.
03:40So maintenance is something I will definitely, you know, be looking at the maintenance data of the fuel system of the aircraft.
03:55There might be a possibility that the aircraft, both the jet engine, was starved of the fuel.
04:00And that might happen when, if they, either there was, you know, fuel, the fuel system might have collapsed.
04:10That could be one reason.
04:11Or there could be, another reason could be issues with the fuel, the impurities in the fuel.
04:17The fuel, you know, that could have, that could also be an issue.
04:22Right.
04:22So that is the subject of investigation, you know.
04:26Indeed.
04:27And Mr. Fezzan, you are in Dallas, Texas, a country which manufactures these Dreamliners, Boeing Dreamliners.
04:37And a year before this plane crash, a whistleblower had claimed of certain flaws in Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
04:48Is there any buzz in the U.S. regarding that?
04:51No, the whistleblower actually did about 737 MAX, you know, the two plane crash and that.
05:05I mean, when you are running an organization like Boeing and you have to deliver aircrafts, you are under contract, you know,
05:14you try to expedite things.
05:18Yes, Boeing is under some serious charges of, you know, irregularities.
05:26But as far as this bird is considered, you know, I have worked on the design of the avionic system of Boeing 787.
05:33The primary flight display, the multi-function display, the flight alignment system, navigation and guidance system.
05:38I have designed with this hands.
05:40So that was early 2000, 2004, 5, 6, 7.
05:47I mean, we were following impeccable process.
05:49There were checks.
05:50There were rechecks.
05:52Right.
05:52So we did not see that.
05:53Yes, from 737 MAX onwards was, you know, there was some things which start coming up.
06:02Even, but the case that we are discussing as of now is of a former engineer with a Boeing 787.
06:10And he had made that claim with 787 Dreamliners suffering from assembly defects that threatened safety.
06:17Although, yes, you are right, 747 has been embroiled with some mishaps mid-air also and during the runway also.
06:28This whistleblower, Sam Salehpore is the name that rings a bell there.
06:33He worked at Boeing for nearly two decades, accuses the company of putting profit over safety and retaliating against him
06:40after he raised concerns by involuntarily transferring him to the 777 program.
06:45Nonetheless, all these things would definitely come up.
06:49One critical aspect and a final question, sir, the United States has offered help and the NTSB has said that the part of FAA
07:01that they want to extend help in this crash.
07:08How equipped do you think NTSB and how helpful will it be, this United States body to come and probe?
07:15Oh wow, NTSB is one of the world's best aircraft, I mean, investigation agency.
07:21Not only aircraft, they investigate all transportation accidents, right?
07:24There's a transportation safety board.
07:27Very well equipped, you know, best resources you can think of.
07:32I mean, if NTSB joins this investigation, I mean, I'm very hopeful you're going to get some really good results pretty fast.
07:42Absolutely.
07:43Final word, how should India at least look at it?
07:47The families have lost their loved ones.
07:49It is tragic, definitely.
07:50But for future course of action and flight safety, do you think Boeing would be able to restore that kind of faith again?
07:59Boeing has a long way to go as far as faith and trust on the system is concerned.
08:04I mean, there could not be a worse time Boeing could get news like this.
08:08One, it was already dealing with 737 issues.
08:12And then last year, the failure of Boeing Starliner, which made Solita Williams, she got stuck up.
08:23And then this, I mean, it could not be a worse time they do that, right?
08:27As far as Indian aviation safety is considered, I mean, I think there's a lot to be done as well.
08:33We have seen last couple of days, last couple of years, very frequent plane crashes.
08:39Frequent plane crash means once a decade, twice a decade.
08:42If you see last one decade, there was a Bangalore plane crash.
08:45And there was this another plane crash, you know, which overshoot the runway.
08:50And in 2020, that's Air India Express.
08:53And now there's, I mean, India will have a long way to go to establish global aviation body trust on their process and procedures, safety process and procedures.
09:06Right. A curious case indeed, Mirza Fazan.
09:09Thank you so much, Mirza Fazan, the aerospace scientist and aviation expert joining us from Dallas in Texas.
09:16And obviously, at a critical time when Boeing also has come under the scanner,
09:20United States is the country which houses, which is headquarters for Boeing.
09:25A lot of questions are coming in and we'll have to wait and watch how deep does this rabbit hole go
09:32when it comes to the upkeep and maintenance of such high flying big ticket airlines.
09:39Fazan, thank you so much for speaking to OneIndia.
09:41Thank you so much for having me. Have a good day.
09:43Pleasure.
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