Podcaster Ryan Bodenheimer, a former F-16 fighter pilot who has also flown Boeing 737 and Airbus 320, reasons that the Air India 171 flight crash was most probably caused by an error on the part of the co-pilot. 

Bodenheimer has arrived at this conclusion by looking at two visible aspects of the aircraft footage taken just after take-off and its crash – the landing gear that should have been retracted and the flaps that should have been down. Flaps are extensions of wings that can be extended out, to make the wings larger, or retracted. They are extended during take-off to aid lift, and while landing to slow down the aircraft. 

Typically, during take-off, the pilot keeps his eye on the runway and the surroundings, and seconds after leaving the ground, he gives a command to the co-pilot: “gear up.” The co-pilot then pulls a lever that retracts the landing gear (the wheels). 

Bodenheimer, who runs a podcast called Max Afterburner, guesses that in this case, the co-pilot might have by mistake retracted the flaps instead of the gear. One can see that the aircraft, perhaps 30 seconds into the flight, still had the gear down; and the wings were skinny, meaning the flaps had been retracted. Bodenheimer describes the situation as “death sentence.” 

If the flaps had been down (as they should have been, at that point), the engines would not be visible, Bodenheimer says. By the time the cockpit realised the mistake, it was too late. 

This calls into question whether there were alarms for flaps being up during take-off—it would be a serious shortcoming if there were no alarms in such a modern aircraft as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. 

However, Bodenheimer does not rule out other possibilities, such as bird hit in both engines and contaminated fuel. The aircraft had just come out of maintenance; as such, faulty maintenance is also a possibility, though unlikely, he says. 

He points to the crash site being on a straight line from the runway and concludes that both the engines had a problem—because if one engine had been affected, the aircraft would have turned (yaw) either to the left or to the right. Bird hits on both engines are known to happen, he says. 

In the podcast, Bodenheimer stresses that air travel remains the safest mode of transportation and asks people not to fear air travel. 

Bodenheimer’s podcast is known for its technical details about flights and aircraft. He has produced podcasts full of technical nuances about the India-Pakistan air skirmishes of May 7-10. 

It has been reported that in the first leg of the aircraft’s journey—from Delhi to Ahmedabad—a passenger named Akash Vatsa complained of air-conditioning not working and other operational issues. He has posted a video showing passengers fanning themselves with magazines. 

Published on June 13, 2025