Bombay - Dubaï

On January 1, 1978 at 08:41 PM, Bombay - Dubaï experienced a crash involving Boeing 747-200, operated by Air India, with the event recorded near Mumbai-Chhatrapati Shivaji (Santa Cruz) Maharashtra.

The flight was categorized as scheduled revenue flight and the reported phase was takeoff (climb) at a lake, sea, ocean, river crash site.

213 people were known to be on board, 213 fatalities were recorded, 0 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 100.0%.

Crew on board: 23, crew fatalities: 23, passengers on board: 190, passenger fatalities: 190, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is human factor. After takeoff from Bombay-Santa Cruz Airport runway 27, while climbing by night at an altitude of 2,400 feet, the captain contacted ATC and wished a Happy New Year. He was cleared to climb to 8,000 feet and initiated a turn to the right according to departure procedures. Once the turn was finished and the aircraft was leveling, the captain realized his Attitude Director Indicator (ADI) was still showing a right-bank indication. The copilot confirmed his ADI was correct and the flight engineer noticed the difference between the captain's ADI and the third ADI system. Despite these two confirmation, the captain started a turn to the left as he thought the aircraft was still in a right-bank attitude. The airplane entered a left turn to an angle of 40° then until an excessive angle of 108° when control was lost. From an altitude of 2,000 feet, the airplane entered a dive and crashed into the Arabian Sea. The airplane disintegrated on impact and all 213 occupants were killed. Most of the debris were found in shallow water about 3 km offshore. Control was lost as the pilot-in-command was flying over the sea by night without any visual references with the ground.

Aircraft reference details include registration VT-EBD, MSN 19959, year of manufacture 1971.