Biocide overdose blunder suspected in A321 dual-engine incident (2020)

30 worik 10 6/24/2025, 8:05:21 PM flightglobal.com ↗

Comments (10)

lxe · 11h ago
Is fuel contamination still the leading theory behind the recent Air India crash too?
i_am_jl · 11h ago
It's a possibility, but if it's the cause it would have to be a problem specific to only this aircraft (like the linked biocide incident) as no other aircraft experienced issues with contaminated fuel.
rurban · 3h ago
No, batteries.
dale_huevo · 11h ago
yes, fuel contamination (with effluent probably) is still very much in play as a possible factor.

unfortunately, there has been a lot of typical misdirection and wild statements out of India, like trying to preemptively clear the pilots of wrongdoing before the recorders have been read out.

most of the initial reports about the flight recorders were easily disproven as the 787 does not use an FDR/CVR but a more modern type of recorder that captures more data. which supposedly India lacks the equipment and/or knowhow to download.

the chances of an objective and transparent investigation are basically zero.

dkarl · 10h ago
> the 787 does not use an FDR/CVR but a more modern type of recorder that captures more data. which supposedly India lacks the equipment and/or knowhow to download

I thought there was a new lab in India that was equipped to recover data from this type of flight recorder, but in this case the recorders were being sent overseas because the extensive fire damage made the recovery process especially challenging [0]?

[0] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/transportation...

i_am_jl · 10h ago
Today the Civil Aviation Minister is claiming the black boxes are still in India with the AAIB.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/black-box-of-crashed-...

fakedang · 10h ago
> like trying to preemptively clear the pilots of wrongdoing before the recorders have been read out.

Because as far as the pilots are concerned, they seem to have done everything by the book? Every experienced 787 pilot literally now states that it's very less likely it's due to a pilot error because it's a 787 - it's designed to mitigate any form of pilot error, even if a pilot decided to go full suicidal and crash it. Within the aviation community, it's also bad practice to put blame on the pilots by default - in fact thinking like yours (oh, pilot error!) is what led to crashes like the 737 Max, because you'd like to rather blame the human rather than the machine or the process.

> most of the initial reports about the flight recorders were easily disproven as the 787 does not use an FDR/CVR but a more modern type of recorder that captures more data. which supposedly India lacks the equipment and/or knowhow to download.

> the chances of an objective and transparent investigation are basically zero.

I can't believe you actually stated both these sentences one after the other. Yes, India does not have the equipment to read the flight recorders on the 787, which is why the DGCA already confirmed yesterday that it's sending the recorders to the US FAA.

Havoc · 8h ago
Wild to specify that as ppm. How is a mechanic in the field even supposed to use that?
heythere22 · 11h ago
(2020)
apical_dendrite · 11h ago
The mentour pilot YouTube channel has a very good video on this incident. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Qclymu2EA