According to air traffic control at Ahmedabad Airport, the aircraft departed at 1.39pm. It made a Mayday call, signalling an emergency, but thereafter there was no response from the aircraft.
US aerospace safety consultant Anthony Brickhouse said one problematic sign from videos of the aircraft was that the landing gear was down at a phase of flight when it would typically be up.
“If you didn’t know what was happening, you would think that plane was on approach to a runway,” Brickhouse said.
Indian Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu said that a formal investigation has been initiated by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau.
“The government is constituting a high-level committee comprising experts from multiple disciplines to examine the matter in detail,” he added.
Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said in a note to employees that was seen by Reuters that he and the head of Boeing’s commercial airplane division had cancelled plans to attend next week’s Paris Air Show, the industry’s biggest event of the year.
Before Thursday’s crash, Ortberg was heading to Paris having made considerable progress on his efforts to rebuild trust in the company following multiple production and safety crises in recent years.
Now, a team of Boeing experts is ready to go to India to help investigators there, he said.
Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said the investigation would take time and expressed “deep sorrow” about the incident.
