Experts examining role wing flaps may have played in crash
published at 14:06
14:06
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"When I'm looking at this," says aviation analyst Geoffrey Thomas, "the undercarriage is still down but the flaps have been retracted."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."
