Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, the pilot of the Air India Boeing 787 that crashed in Ahmedabad, is being hailed as a hero for steering the failing aircraft away from a densely populated apartment complex at the last moment, potentially saving dozens of lives.
Despite catastrophic engine failure after takeoff, Sabharwal, who had over 8,200 flying hours, managed to divert the plane toward an open area near BJ Medical College, where it ultimately crashed into a doctor’s accommodation building, killing 241 of the 242 people on board and several others on the ground.
Survivors in nearby buildings credited the pilot’s quick decision with sparing them from certain death, calling his actions courageous and life-saving.
“Thanks to the pilot Captain Sabharwal, we survived. He’s a hero. It is because of him we are alive,” said local resident Jahanvi Rajput.
“The green space next to us was visible to him and that’s where he went.”
All of this automation, ‘fly-by-wire’ and Flight ‘Management’ Systems need to be scrapped, and previous control systems re-established, along with Flight Engineers who almost always have a Pilot qualification.
The only item that needs to stay are GPS mapping and singular Approach and S.T.A.R. / T.C.A screens for spatial awareness.
Mechanical flight instruments which are partly analogue very seldom fail, and are not subjected to EMP’s, 5-6G signals.
Sperry STARS comes to mind for the more advanced mechanical instrumentation, at least in part.
The Russians employ 7th generation vacuum tubes which do not react to EMP’s, or outside signals which may interfere with normal navigation and aircraft operations.
There are plans to install these on the AN-225 Mriya, as a regenerated Mriya is being built from a spare airframe that was never completed in the 1980’s and has been pulled out of storage. Donations from many nations have arrived for this resurrection effort, and it will have mechanical round instrumentation.
Catastrophic engine failure you say ??? So the accident investigation is out??? The retracted flaps and extended undercarriage – were they just mirages? No causal link there ???? Imaginary perhaps.???
What a crock this article is. Wait for the investigation findings.