Experts examining role wing flaps may have played in crashpublished at 14:06 British Summer Time
By Jake Horton
Aviation experts have told the BBC that the position of the plane’s wing
flaps as it took off may have been an issue.
One video we’ve verified shows the plane descending and a large
explosion as it hits the ground.
“When I’m looking at this,” says aviation
analyst Geoffrey Thomas, “the undercarriage is still down but the flaps have
been retracted.”
This means the flaps were in line with the wing, which he says is very
unusual so soon after take-off.
“The undercarriage is normally retracted within
10-15 seconds, and the flaps are then retracted over a period of 10-15
minutes,” he says,
Another expert, Terry Tozer, says: “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,” says 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.”
