When Air India Flight AI171 plunged moments after takeoff from Ahmedabad on June 12, killing nearly all on board and dozens on the ground, it marked not just a national tragedy, but a catastrophic failure in understanding — or respecting — physical reality. As a physicist, I cannot explain this event through emotion or outrage alone. I must explain it through motion, energy, and systems that either align with natural laws or fail catastrophically when they don’t.

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is not just a flying machine; it is a physical equation in motion. It operates in a space where Newton’s laws, Bernoulli’s principle, and thermodynamic limits converge — all while relying on electronics, software, and human judgment to keep it within safe margins. When a plane crashes 30 seconds after liftoff, as Flight AI171 did, physics hasn’t malfunctioned. It has operated precisely. What failed was everything else.

Let’s start with lift. An aircraft rises because air pressure over the curved top of the wing is lower than the pressure below, generating upward force — a result of Bernoulli’s principle. But this only works within a narrow band of speed, angle, and air density. Failure to achieve sufficient speed or a misconfigured wing flap can steeply reduce lift. Combine this with inadequate thrust — Newton’s Second Law in its most unforgiving form — and you have the perfect setup for loss of altitude.
The preliminary reports and flight data — if consistent with early visual evidence — suggest that AI171 never entered stable climb. This is critical: the first 60 seconds of flight are the most sensitive, especially in a wide-body aircraft like the Dreamliner, which carries a takeoff weight of around 230,000 kilograms. That weight requires not only thrust but precision — every second matters, every sensor reading is vital.