Boeing crash in India rips up 787’s safety record

Before Thursday’s crash, the 787 Dreamliner model had one of the cleanest safety records in commercial aviation.

Rescue officials are seen near the wreckage of Air India flight 171 after it crashed in a residential area near the airport in Ahmedabad. Picture: AFP

The crash of an Air India flight to London upends the safety record of one of Boeing’s bestselling jets, dealing a fresh blow to the beleaguered US plane maker that has been mired by safety and production issues in recent years.

The Boeing 787-8 jet, carrying 242 people, stopped transmitting its location less than a minute after taking off Thursday from an airport in western India, according to flight-tracking website Flightradar24. The aircraft reached an altitude of 625 feet before falling from the sky, the data show.

Indian authorities said the crash likely killed everyone aboard.

It isn’t yet clear what caused the plane to crash. Accidents can be caused by multiple factors, spanning potential errors made by flight crew to manufacturing and design faults.

“We are in contact with Air India regarding Flight 171 and stand ready to support them. Our thoughts are with the passengers, crew, first responders and all affected,” Boeing said in a statement.

The company’s stock fell more than 4 per cent in early trading Thursday.

The incident comes at a critical moment for the hobbled American icon, which has been buffeted by a succession of crises in recent years, losing billions of dollars due to plane groundings and production delays.

Thursday’s crash could raise fresh questions about Boeing just as it begins to emerge from the fallout of a high-profile incident early last year when a door plug on a recently delivered 737 MAX fell off during a flight. That incident led to the ouster of the company’s chief executive and reignited major scrutiny over its safety culture and production mishaps across its factories.

The Air India plane crashed on the BJ Medical College UG hostel mess in Meghani Nagar, Ahmedabad. Picture: X

Since then, the jet maker has suffered massive financial losses and production delays as it weeds out manufacturing glitches and tries to satisfy the concerns of the Federal Aviation Administration.

The aircraft involved in Thursday’s crash wasn’t a new delivery. The plane first entered service in 2014, according to Flightradar24 records.

Before Thursday’s crash, the 787 model, launched in late 2011, had one of the cleanest safety records in commercial aviation, with zero recorded fatalities, according to the Aviation Safety Network’s database.

The so-called Dreamliner is one of Boeing’s bestselling aircraft, with the company so far delivering close to 1200 of the jets to customers. It got its name after a public naming competition that elicited about half a million votes.

Still, the 787 has faced a number of production setbacks. It suffered from early supply-chain issues and then battery fires that led air-safety regulators to ground the 787 fleet for a few months in 2013. Boeing also had to pause deliveries of the aircraft for almost two years because of quality-control problems.

More recently, Boeing has ramped up 787 production and executives have said the company’s manufacturing operations have improved. That came after Boeing slowed production, stepped up employee training and improved manufacturing processes.

Boeing Chief Executive Kelly Ortberg, who took over in August, has told employees that the company is on a fragile path to recovery and can’t afford another mistake.

Wall Street Journal