According to an aviation expert, Air India flight AI171 crashed because the co-pilot pulled the wing flaps rather than retracting the landing gear.

Captain Steve, a YouTuber and commercial airline pilot who studies jet crashes and near misses, offered his view on the event that claimed the lives of 241 persons on board.

Shortly after taking flight, the 787 Dreamliner headed for London started to lose altitude and crashed in a fireball over a residential neighbourhood in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

When the co-pilot was instructed to retract the landing gear, Steve claimed he had a suspicion that there had been a very basic mistake in the cockpit that had disastrous results.

He said: “Here’s what I think happened, again folks this is just my opinion. I think the pilot flying said to the co-pilot said ‘gear up’ at the appropriate time.”

“I think the co-pilot grabbed the flap handle and raised the flaps, instead of the gear. If that happened, this explains a lot of why this airplane stopped flying.”

Steve stated that the flight would rapidly lose altitude and airspeed due to the elevated flaps, which he believes the pilot would have found difficult to manage.

The 787’s composite wings would typically bend during takeoff as lift forces propel it into the air, he stated in order to support his theory.

However, the Air India aircraft doesn’t seem to be bending like that, leading many to believe that the flaps that lift the aircraft off were inadvertently retracted.

It was the deadliest aircraft catastrophe in ten years, with only one of the 242 persons on board surviving and up to 24 people killed on the ground.

The cause of Thursday’s tragedy is still unknown, but investigators will now try to determine if it was mechanical failure or pilot mistake.

The pilot of the Boeing 787, Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, is one of the people thought to have perished.

The pilot of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner was identified as Mr. Sabharwal, who possessed 8,200 hours of expertise.

Co-pilot Clive Kunder, a Mumbai native, had finished his training at the Paris Air Flight School in Florida and had 1,100 flying hours under his belt.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has now paid a medical visit to the 40-year-old single survivor, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh.

From his hospital bed on Friday, Mr. Ramesh told DD News, “I still can’t believe how I survived.”

Shortly after taking off, he said the broadcaster, the plane felt as though it was “stuck in the air” before the lights started to flicker green and white. He added, “It suddenly slammed into a building and exploded.”

He said, “I still can’t believe how I came out of it alive. For a moment, I felt like I was going to die too.”

“But when I opened my eyes and looked around, I realized I was alive. I still can’t believe how I survived.”

The jet landed on a canteen building where students were having lunch, killing at least 24 persons on the ground, according to officials.

The recovery of the flight data recorder from the debris on Friday is expected to provide hints regarding the accident’s cause.

India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau stated that it has started working with “full force” after the plane’s digital flight data recorder, also known as the “black box,” was found on a rooftop close to the accident scene.

According to a social media post by Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu, the black box recovery represents a significant advancement in the inquiry.

The NTSB, FAA, Boeing, and General Electric will all be involved in the probe as U.S. participants.