Air India 171 *Critical New Data* Vapor Lock Engine Failure - What Captain Steeeve isn't Saying.

There is now new evidence that points to

a potential cause for the Air India 171

flight that crashed first 787 Dreamliner

8 whole loss ever of that Dreamliner

series. And folks, we've got to talk

about what nobody is piecing together

yet. And I think as a jet pilot myself,

I may be piecing together some of the

puzzle that hasn't been mentioned by

other creators in the space. First of

all, shout out to some of the other

channels covering the topics, whether

it's AI telly's animations, which are

always great, or Captain Steve, who

finally U-turned on blaming the pilots,

to now arguing dual engine failure is

possible. Originally, we talk about the

potential for the first officer to grab

the flap setting instead of the gear.

And we make these sort of speculative

assertions when we actually see

components of the aircraft on the ground

indicating the flaps may have actually

been set in the perfect cons

configuration for takeoff. Now,

obviously, we know that the ram air

turbine has been deployed. We know that

the landing gear stays out. So, what

could potentially put together all of

the pieces of the puzzle that nobody is

talking about? As a jet pilot, we're

going to get into it right away. Vapor

lock. This is my opinion, and I'm going

to explain to you why I think vapor lock

could have caused a dual engine failure

inside this aircraft and led uh to the

crash uh and death of now potentially

over 270

individuals. First of all, what is vapor

lock and how can it occur? Generally,

you're going to see vapor lock occur

when the conditions inside the aircraft

are extremely hot. What we know about

the Air India crash already is that

people were fanning themselves inside of

the aircraft because the air

conditioning was off. You could see

people fanning themselves. This aircraft

sat on the tarmac per the Guardian for

over 2 hours. By sitting on the tarmac

for over 2 hours, potentially as long as

3 hours before takeoff, we end up with a

condition where this aircraft is in a

very hot configuration or hot state. The

air conditioning is not on inside of the

aircraft and you end up getting fuel lo

fuel lines inside of the aircraft that

potentially become heat saturated. Now,

why does that matter? Why would it

matter that fuel lines inside of the

aircraft are potentially heat saturated?

It's not a problem if your fuel pumps

are walking or or or are functioning.

Vapor lock is basically the lowering uh

of uh the or or the increase in

temperature leading to vapor bubbles

inside of the fuel lines of an aircraft.

This could happen in a car. It could

happen in a Cessna. It could happen in a

Piper. And it could happen in a lower or

a larger aircraft like a Boeing 787 as

well. Now, usually a 787 is not going to

see this happen because we have two very

powerful hydraulic fuel pumps that keep

positive pressure on our fuel lines. So

that way our engines don't run into some

kind of dual engine failure after a

takeoff. Which, mind you, when we see

this aircraft takeoff, which we now have

higher definition footage of the

aircraft takeoff. Initially, we had

pretty grainy footage. We now have

higher definition footage of not only

the takeoff, but also the crash. We

don't see what is characteristic of an

engine flame out suggesting that the

aircraft hit birds. We don't see birds.

We don't see any kind of destruction to

the engines. Instead, it looks like the

aircraft simply lost lift. And there are

reports now, although we don't have the

air traffic control data yet, there are

reports that before impact, the pilots

issued a Mayday call and stated no

power, no thrust. So, what could

potentially or how could vapor lock

potentially contribute to this? Well, in

my opinion, and this is how we piece

together the facts. I'll give you my

opinions right after the facts. We know

that this aircraft took off at 1338.

That's in the afternoon. It's 1:38 p.m.

The temperature at the time of takeoff

was between 102 and 104 degrees. The air

condition was not operating inside the

aircraft at the time the aircraft was

sitting on the tarmac, which means you

have an aircraft that's heating up. It

means you have fuel lines that are

heating up. It means you have an

aircraft that's in a very warm

configuration for takeoff and

potentially upon takeoff we notice that

the landing gear is still down on the

aircraft. Is it potentially possible

that at the time of takeoff we had a

dual hydraulic failure which led to the

inability to raise the gear which then

turned into a loss of positive fuel

pressure to both the number one and the

number two engine.

With that loss of positive pressure at

the same time as a tilt up of the

aircraft, we would have less suction

sort of gravity suction if you will from

uh the the more gravityfed pumps uh

inside well the the non they're not

really pumps uh the the sort of

gravityfed uh fuel lines inside of the

aircraft. You would have had less

positive pressure from gravity because

the plane is tilted up. At the same time

as the potential that you could lead air

bubbles in fuel lines to move through

the fuel system thanks to the nose up

attitude of the aircraft during takeoff

leading to a simultaneous dual engine

failure.

Now to me this pieces together a lot of

the puzzle. We know it was a very hot

day. We know the aircraft was sitting on

the ground without air conditioning

leading to the likelihood that inside

the aircraft all components of the

aircraft were heat soaked absolutely

heat locked in a condition where it's

highly likely would have we would have

had vapor in the fuel lines. That would

not ordinarily be an issue though. It

would not ordinarily be an issue to take

off in a hot configuration because you

have hydraulic powering powering fuel

pumps to where you don't actually need

to worry about vapor lock. You don't

need sensors to worry about vapor lock

because you have hydraulic pumps and

fuel pumps that are operating the other

systems of your aircraft. However, if

upon takeoff you suddenly have a dual

hydraulic failure

that shuts down the number one and

number two fuel pumps at the same time

as being unable to remove the uh drag of

your landing gear, which is also a

potential symptom that the landing gear

hydraulics weren't functioning since we

need hydraulics to be able to uh operate

the landing gear. Then we could be in a

place where upon takeoff we had a dual

hydraulic failure which led to the

failure to lift off our landing gear

which led to the simultaneous then

lack of positive fuel pressure to the

engines. Now we feed from sump pumps or

gravity pumps. Basically just sort of uh

the natural flow of fuel inside of the

aircraft without positive pressure which

amplifies the impact of vapor inside

fuel lines leading potentially to the

bang sound that reportedly were heard.

Not only did a survivor of this

incident, which is absolutely remarkable

that somebody survived this incident,

report a loud bang, but others are

reporting that this loud bang was heard

on the ground. Some people attribute

this bang to the deployment of the rare

ram air turbine. I I don't I've never

seen the deployment of the ram air

turbine lead to a loud bang, but a

compressor stall or some form of

compressor surge potentially because of

dual vapor lock shutting off both

engines could cause this. So think about

the sequence of events how this could

happen here. The plane's on the ground

for 2 to 3 hours in 102 to 104°

temperatures.

The plane has no air conditioning or

cooling occurring on the ground inside

of the aircraft leading to potential

heat soaking of all of the systems

including the fuel lines in the

aircraft. Upon takeoff, we have a

simultaneous hydraulic failure leading

to the failure to be able to lift the

gear. Because by now we should see the

sequence of the gear going up begin to

activate. I'll show you that in just a

moment. Then what we end up with is a

vapor lock situation thanks to the nose

high attitude during takeoff which

allows vapor to move up. Think about it.

If you turn a water bottle, the water

goes up to the top leading to less fuel

pressure for those engines. a dual

engine failure thanks to a failure of

the hydraulic pumps and vapor lock. Now

we have the drag of the gear. We do not

have enough altitude to escape the

situation. We have flaps deployed based

on the debris on the floor at the proper

setting. So we're not concerned about a

flap issue here. We get the deployment

of the ram air turbine because of this

not only hydraulic failure but also

engine failure. and we're way too low

for the Ramber turbine to restart these

engines because these engines are going

to take way too long to start. And so

here could be a case of hydraulic pump

failure leading to vapor lock and a

failure that is not a pilot's fault.

Instead, it could be a ground management

concern where originally, you know, when

we get these sort of video videos, a lot

of people were sending me videos of the

failure of the air condition to be on on

the ground. But usually those systems

are independent, right? In fact, a lot

of pilots when we take off, they turn

the air conditioning off for takeoff

because they want all the power for

those engines so we can gain as much

altitude as possible, as quickly as

possible. But the fact that people are

fanning themselves potentially for hours

on the ground really could lead to that

heat soak condition in an aircraft. Now

something to know about uh Air India

flights is there have been cases before

in in other flights where you see this

sort of con condensing or water dripping

down inside of the aircraft because the

air conditioning systems can't handle

the heat in India. And so this is a

potential air conditioning maintenance

issue which leads to an overheated

condition inside of the aircraft leading

to some kind of fuel fault inside of the

aircraft. Now there is speculation as

well and there are rumors as well uh

that have been posted and it's it's hard

to give credence to some of these

because we just don't know. But there is

there are screenshots of people leaving

comments saying that they have flown

this aircraft. We can't obviously verify

that from a comment. And this comment

that I saw, I don't want to show it up

on screen because I don't want to point

out this person's, you know, username or

whatever, but there are comments, there

are screenshots of a YouTube comment

circulating where somebody says they

have piloted this aircraft and they've

had single engine failures on this

aircraft before and that Air India

doesn't provide the proper maintenance

for these systems, whether it's

hydraulic or otherwise. Now, we don't

know if that's true. It could be a

failure of Boeing. It could be a failure

of unfortunately the Swiss cheese model

lining up where unfortunately you had a

hydraulic failure combined with severe

heat in India a lack of cooling ground

delays and everything lining up to lead

to a vapor lock condition where Boeings

generally you don't have vapor lock

sensors because you have hydraulic pumps

that are working so it's not an issue

that you have to worry about. Now,

nobody that I've seen has mentioned this

so far. And this is why I think this is

very interesting. Captain Steve at the

end of his, "Wow, the Ram Air turbine

changes everything video appropriately

says this looks like it was a dual

engine failure." And I agree. I think

this was a dual engine failure, but I

think it was a dual engine failure

caused in part by the failure uh of the

hydraulic pumps uh and a heat soaked

plane which finally combines with what

we see with that interior footage of the

aircraft. Now I want to show you a real

takeoff here in a jet and I want you to

see the normal sequence here on takeoff.

It is. There are still some people

arguing that is possible that they just

forgot to lift the gear. I find this

highly highly unlikely. As somebody

who's gone through extensive training uh

and it's I still learn every day uh in

these aircraft.

People don't forget to raise the gear

and it's really hard to mess up the gear

and the flaps in an aircraft in a jet.

Uh, in this case, our gear handle uh is

up here. It happens, but it's relatively

unlikely. Uh, and then our flap settings

are over here. And again, we saw flaps

deployed on the ground. But what I want

you to see is how how quick we take this

gear up. Uh, and so you'll see that on

this takeoff. This is a takeoff out of

uh Heber uh Heber, Utah. Uh, this is a

uh very high elevation airport. So,

while it's not hot, it's high elevation.

So, high density altitude, less lift,

much like what you also get in a high

heat situation like what happened uh

likely in this Air India situation since

the temperatures were 102 to 104 out

there. But I want you to see how quickly

we go for this this gear retraction just

so you can see it from a different

angle. And we're going to leave the

flaps in until about 1,000 ft above the

field here. Uh to to maintain as much

lift as we can for as long as possible,

especially since we're since we're in a

mountainous terrain. We're in a We're

basically in this bowl here. And I

manually right turned this to do a

visual climb over the airport to get out

to the south. This is a non-towered

airport. So here's the takeoff. Happy

Sunday.

22 on the pavement. Heading degrees.

Here we go. I have no traffic here. So

yeah, you're you're clear. Let's do it.

Okay, we did our takeoff. Okay, lights

are good. Everything's good. Takeoff

checks complete. Here we go. All right.

Ready? Yeah. Yeah, I'd probably do a

little static, too. Oh, yeah, for sure.

Here we go. Takeoff tower set. All

right, ATR's in the green.

Okay, brakes off. All right, your

speed's live. Check. Three ways. 6,000

to go.

70. Check.

on rotate.

You're up. That's right. There's the

gear. We get to 400, we'll do flaps.

Yep. I guess we're at 400 over on this

one.

All right, I'm going to call 400 over.

Flaps up. Flaps up. Gear up. Flap up.

I misremembered. We said 400 over.

Obviously, we had previously established

that in this case, but what's

interesting is you can see how quickly

we go for that gear up flap up. Uh

mostly that gear up very first thing.

Then we wait purposefully for flaps

later. And we've got two pilots here.

So, we're able to verify it like, hey,

then we even do our checklist

afterwards. Gear up, flap up, right? Uh

this is uh you know, this is a uh

ascent out of uh Heber. Uh, another way

you could see or another thing to know

is people have asked, hey, what about

the ram air turbine? You know, you've

got this ram air turbine. Can't you

restart the engine? This in this case,

if you've got the ramar turbine moving,

you know, aren't isn't there a way you

can restart? Problems.

Even if you're able to clear the vapor

lock condition and the ram air turbine

is trying to help you get your hydraulic

power back, engines take quite a while

to start on the ground. Uh, I would say

when we especially if it's hot on a hot

day, it's it's actually surprisingly

slow to start these engines. On a hot

day, so like a Vegas day, if we go to

start these engines, I might say, "Okay,

uh, you know, engine start, we clear

right, whatever." We go for an engine

start, it'll probably take about 45

seconds to a minute before this is

actually at speeds. uh this this jet

engine. Uh unfortunately

the AirIndia flight was only in the air

for somewhere around 45 seconds, maybe

30 seconds of flight. I took off at

13:38, so 1:38 p.m. uh and then crashed

at 1:38 p.m. So anyway, this gives us a

little bit of a potential here on the

Air India flight. It does look like

again flaps were appropriately set. It

does look like uh although we'll have to

verify once we get more data. This is

just from crash footage that we can

tell. So obviously there's speculation

involved here and we have to be careful

about how we're putting pieces of the

puzzle together. But to me when we put

the pieces of the puzzle together, the

loud bang that we heard was likely to me

the stall of the engines. Right? So this

is the stall slash the engine fail that

you hear whether it's a compressor surge

uh and then the uh uh you know the

essentially the flame well you don't get

a flame out here but but the shutdown of

the engines. You've got hot which

increases the conditions for vapor lock.

We've got time on tarmac. We've got two

to three hours on the tarmac. We've got

the gear staying up, which suggests

a hydraulic failure. Vapor lock also can

occur and be most devastating on a

hydraulic failure. The loss of lift

supports the idea of an engine failure.

And we don't believe that birds or the

flaps were necessarily an issue here. I

also believe that even if even if the

flaps were retracted slightly early with

both of the engines still on, this

aircraft should have been able to climb

out of this condition. So that's my

opinion on the Air India 171 crash. I'm

surprised we haven't heard Vaporlock

mentioned from anyone else, but I'd be

curious to see what other people's

perspectives are on this. I'm going to

look at some uh comments here. Somebody

here writes uh uh you know, what is the

rat? Yes, but the black box has been

recovered. The rat is the ram air

turbine. It's a little propeller that uh

aids in providing hydraulic pressure to

hydraulic systems that have failed or

give you an opportunity to restart the

engines of the aircraft. The rammer

turbine also has a very distinct sound

when it is dep when it's deployed and is

very consistent with the audio that we

hear of the Air India accident. So, for

example, if we jump over to Bronco,

Bronco has has a fantastic um comparison

of what the Ram Air Turbine sounds like.

And I'll go ahead and play a clip from

his video. It's Friday, the 13th of

June. My name's Juan Brown. You're

watching the Blancio. You'll see this

right here in the mountain here.

Listen for the sound of the propeller.

That's it. You could see that ram air

turbine.

I'll pause

right here. Some people are associating

the bang with the deployment of the ram

air turbine. I don't think so. I think

that was the sound of the engines

failing.

And then listen to the air propellers on

our husk.

Did you hear that very distinctive sound

of the rat?

It sounds like one of the uh Here's the

audio from the crash.

into this. So there you go. Some of my

thoughts on what happened with the Air

India accident. Thanks for watching the

segment on the Air India accident.

Hopefully uh whatever lessons are

learned from this accident can prevent

future accidents. Why not advertise

these things that you told us here? I

feel like nobody else knows about this.

We'll we'll try a little advertising and

see how it goes. Congratulations, man.

You have done so much. People love you.

People look up to you. Kevin Praat

there, financial analyst and YouTuber.

Meet Kevin. Always great to get your

take.