The crash of a Boeing 747 near Bombay

Boeing 747-237B with tail number VT-EBD (factory - 19959) and named Emperor Ashoka was built in 1971 , and on March 8 made its first flight. He was transferred to Air-India on March 22 and became the first representative of the Boeing 747 in this company ^[1] .

Boeing operated flight 855 from Bombay to Dubai . He piloted his crew, led by commander Madan L. Kukar. At 20:40, the plane took off from runway 27 of the Sahara Bombay airport and began to climb. On board were 23 crew members and 190 passengers ^[2] .

After crossing the coastline and being above the water, the crew began to perform a planned right turn. After reaching the route, the plane was straightened, but then the commander noticed that according to the indications of his horizon, the plane was still in the right bank, although the wings should have been in the left bank. He probably tried to correct the roll, but the horizon was in place. Then the commander said: “What happened to my device?” , To which the co-pilot remarked: “On my roll too, everything is in order . ” However, in fact, the co-pilot showed the left horizon roll, which was created by the commander, trying to fix the imaginary right. Hearing from the second pilot that his horizon also shows a roll, the commander, being guided by the readings of his device, began, as he believed, to withdraw the plane from the right roll, actually increasing the left ^[2] .

The Boeing flew at an altitude of 2000 feet (600 meters) at night over the Arabian Sea , so the pilots did not see external landmarks by which they could determine their position. Focusing on the horizon, the commander did not look at other instruments, including the turn coordinator and the variometer . But, in addition to the two main horizons, there is another backup cabin. The difference between them was noticed by the flight engineer , who, seeing that the left roll had already reached 40 °, said: "Do not lead there, do not lead there ..." . But the roll continued to grow until it reached 108 °. After only 101 seconds from the moment of take-off, the Boeing crashed into the waters of the Arabian Sea at an angle of 35-40 ° 3 kilometers from the coast. All 213 people on board died. At the time of the event, it was the largest aviation accident in India (the second in 2013) ^[2] .

The probable cause of the disaster was the mistake of the commander who brought the plane into the roll, not knowing about a malfunction of the horizon and not being guided by the readings of other instruments, as well as prompts from other crew members ^[2] .

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