Richard Arnold: US Correspondent on the Air India Boeing crash in Ahmedabad

India's set to lead an investigation into a plane crash in Ahmedabad, which has killed at least 290. 

The Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed onto a doctor's hostel right after take-off, heading for London's Gatwick Airport.  

According to the Telegraph, the last words from the pilot were 'Mayday, no thrust, losing power, unable to lift'. 

US Correspondent Richard Arnold told Mike Hosking this is the first fatal crash by this particular Boeing model, of which there’s about a thousand in service around the world. 

He says experts believe the black box should contain a significant amount of information about the crash, and no doubt Boeing and US safety inspectors will play some role in the investigation. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Stateside Richard Arnold morning, Good morning, Mike. What a Bowing
got to say?

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Well, yeah, they say they're horrified by this scene, clearly everyone.
Scores of charred bodies being recovered from the crash Bowing
seven eighty seven, eight hundred Dreamliner, more than two hundred
and ninety passengers and people on the ground killed in Ahmedabad,
and only one known survivor. How miraculous. He's a British fellow,
forty year old vishwash fromsh who were sitting in seat

(00:26):
eleven A, so right near the emergency exit, near the
wing in front, says David Sussi, a former US federal
aviation investigator.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
That's right where the spar of the wing would go
under and it would be a solid place for the
aircraft to hit the ground. But as far as survivability
above it, that's it's incredibly surprising.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Well, this man escapes with only some beruising to his chest.
No word on his brother who also was on the jet,
and they were trying to get back to London after
making a family visit. He says that thirty seconds after
take off, there was a loud noise in the plane
crash and he saw bodies all about amid pieces of
the shattered jet. Now, this is the first fatal crashed
by this particular Boeing model, with about one thousand of

(01:08):
these aircraft and service around the world. In New Zealand
has fourteen of the seven eight seven nines, so that's
a slightly longer version of this plane, has a greater range,
holds few more passengers, but these jets have a top
safety record in this air as are to the pilot
called a mayday moments before the crash, and David Seussi says.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
I do have a concern about the configuration of the
airplane after it took off, and you can see it's
pretty clear that the flaps are not down on the
aircraft and that the landing gear is out, and that's
just the exact opposite of what you would expect to
see at that altitude. The landing gear should have been
withdrawn and the flaps should have been down still to
make that aircraft climb, and that's not what happened here.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
So that's one expert view, he says, that's the first
thing he'd look at. And then the black boxes, which
he says should have a lot of information in this model.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
It's so sophisticated, it's technologically advanced to where it actually
has censors in the wings that since the stress is
on the wings, and those will be recorded in the
black box as well. There's so much information available with
this accident.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, it's up to the Indian government of course, as
to who leads that part of the investigation, where materials
if they're sent to London or Singapore or to the
INTSB lab in Washington, d C. But no doubt Boeing
and you were safety investigators will play some role in
all of this mode.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Right, parade, the protest, where are we at?

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah, that's the deal. We're seeing some sharply desperate visions
of the country this week. In coming up, they're rolling
in the tanks for the Trump birthday military parade set
for this Sunday, your time. Washington, DC rostered to take
part one hundred and fifty military vehicles, dozens of helicopters,
various planes, and sixty seven hundred soldiers. Trump is saying,

(02:48):
the greatest.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Weapons in the world and the greatest people in the world.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
It's going to be a big parade, big, big parade.
On Trump's seventy ninth birthday. Hey, that's just a coincidence, right,
And the Trump team has been well into the place,
boasting the number of troops involved from three hundred initially
to sixty seven hundred. His idea is to have a parade, bigger,
much bigger than what he saw in Paris for Bestiel
Day in twenty seventeen, when Trump said at the time

(03:11):
he wanted an even larger parade than those French folks
had been able to put on, Bigger than Putin's parades,
bigger than Kim Jong Orn, just big, big, big, Seventy
four million dollars in New Zealand, forty five million US
just for the army's role, says Democrat Dick Durbin, of
the costs that are being registered with all.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
Of this, forty five million dollars for a parade, for
God's sake, money should be put in defense, medical research.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
But a problem might be thunderstorms, the weather. It's not
looking too good for this weekend. Fox plans to air
this thing as well, but the other television network's not
so much. Lots of hotel rooms still available, Folks not
flocking to see this thing. Trump says, security will be tired.
Is any protester once to come out, there will be
met with very big force protesters. Watch out. No distinction

(03:55):
there between violent and peaceful i e. Legal protests, but
any but at two thousand sites around the country at
the same time on Sunday, there will be protests in
a raft of cities and towns, so called No King's Day. Meantime,
last night, Trump and Millennium really seen went off to
the Kennedy Center to watch the musical lay Misserabbler, after

(04:17):
Trump took control of that leading cultural venue some weeks back,
making himself the chairman of a board made up of
mostly Trump aids and Fox News people. When Trump arrived
last night, he was loudly booed welcome. Yeah. There are
also some sheers amid shouts of things like convicted felon,

(04:40):
interesting choice that lay miss right for Trump's first ever
theater outing there the story of poor folks fighting against
a system that favors the rich of ordinary people, including
Jean Valjean building barricades against the government and chanting do
you hear the people sing?

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Let's talk Monday? Richard Arnold Sitz by the way yesterday
from Fort Bragg, the instructions the soldiers behind Trump were
as follow as twelve fifteen. Everyone must be seated in
the bleachers. Under note, soldiers sitting in the bleachers are
to be fit, not look fat. If any soldiers have
political views that are in opposition to the current administration,
they don't want to be in the audience, then they
need to speak with their leadership and get swapped out. Basically,

(05:15):
they don't want soldiers in the audience rolling their eyes
or shaking their head in disagreement, so it works.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
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Speaker 3 (05:24):
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