Introduction
It was the evening of New Year's Day in 1978. Air India Flight 855 was scheduled from Santacruz Airport, Bombay, India to Dubai International Airport, Dubai. There were 213 people on board including 190 passengers and 23 crew members and the aircraft was Boeing 747. It was the same aircraft which was delivered to Air India in April 1971.
Captain Madan Lal Kukar was 51 year old with experience of 18,000 flight hours.
First Officer Indu Virmani was 42 Year old with experience of 4,000 flight hours.
Flight Engineer Alfredo Faria was 53 Year Old with experience of 11,000 flight hours.
1 minute after the takeoff captain took the right turn as it was scheduled. After, coming to normal it started rolling to the left. The voice recorder investigation revealed that the Attitude Indicator of Captain was showing on right bank where as the Attitude Indicator of first officer was displaying the left bank. Captain mistakenly considered that both attitude indicators were displaying the wrong information.
It was dark as it was an evening flight and the aircraft was flying over the Arabian sea. Because of the dark the crew was not able to verify the attitude indicator's readings with the outside horizons. Boeing 747 is equipped with third Backup attitude indicator which is situated the middle of the instrument panel so that both pilots can view it. Just 5 seconds before the impact of aircraft with Arabian sea it was recorded in the cockpit voice recorder that flight engineer Faria was telling the captain that "Don't go by that one, don't go by that one".
It is believed that just after 101 seconds of the takeoff the aircraft hit the Arabian sea with the 35 degree nose down angle and all the on board people lost their lives. The investigation report revealed that the cause of the air crash was unawareness of the attitude of the aircraft.
