AVIATION experts have weighed in on the evidence available so far, and the consensus seems to be that the wing flaps of Air India flight 171 were not in the correct position at the time of takeoff.

US aerospace safety consultant Anthony Brickhouse told Reuters that 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.

One video verified by the BBC shows the plane descending before a large explosion occurs as it hits the ground.

“When I’m looking at this,” aviation analyst Geoffrey Thomas said, “the undercarriage is still down but the flaps have been retracted.”

Another expert, Terry Tozer, told the BBC: “It’s very hard to say from the video for sure, it doesn’t look as if the flaps are extended and that would be a perfectly obvious explanation for an aircraft not completing its take-off correctly.” “That would point to potential human error if flaps aren’t set correctly,” said Marco Chan, a former pilot and a senior lecturer at Buckinghamshire New University, “but the resolution of the video is too low to confirm that.”

Published in Dawn, June 13th, 2025