Air India Flight 855 — 1978 plane crash of an Air India Boeing 747 near Bombay, India
The crash killed all 213 aboard and remained Air India's deadliest disaster until the 1985 Flight 182 bombing.
Key Facts
- Date
- 1 January 1978
- Lives lost
- 213 people
- Time after take-off
- 101 seconds
- Distance from shore
- 3 km
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 747
- Route
- Bombay to Dubai
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
The captain's attitude director indicator (ADI), one of the most critical flight instruments, failed shortly after take-off. This led to the captain becoming spatially disoriented, compounded by a lack of crew coordination to identify and correct the instrument failure in time.
On 1 January 1978, Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 departing Bombay for Dubai, crashed into the Arabian Sea approximately 3 km off the coast of Bandra just 101 seconds after take-off. All 213 passengers and crew on board were killed.
The disaster was the deadliest airliner accident in Indian history until the 1996 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision, and remained Air India's worst until the 1985 bombing of Flight 182. It highlighted the critical importance of ADI redundancy and effective crew resource management in aviation safety.