Boeing 787-8, Which Crashed In Ahmedabad, Had Immaculate Safety Record

Ahmedabad:

The Air India Ahmedabad-London flight crashed this afternoon, marking the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner’s first fatal crash since the aircraft’s debut in 2011.

With 242 people on board, Air India flight AI171 took off from Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhai Patel Airport around 2 pm and plummeted from a height of 625 feet minutes later into a residential area. Moments before the crash, the pilots issued a “Mayday” distress, call which received no response from the Air Traffic Controller. Flames erupted and thick smoke billowed from the site, rising high enough to be visible from miles across the city. Official sources say none of the passengers, crew and pilots on board have survived the crash.

Before Thursday’s crash, the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft had an immaculate record with 1,000 planes delivered in around the 14 years since it was launched. Described on the company website as the “best-selling passenger wide-body of all time”, the aircraft have carried more than one billion passengers. It is faster than any other widebody jet in aviation history and has a composite structure that reduces fuel consumption by up to 25 per cent.

The long-haul aircraft has a range of 13,530 kilometres and is widely used by airlines for intercontinental flights. It has a capacity of 248 passengers. It can be used for “point-to-point” services, meaning it can fly direct to a destination instead of relying on a “hub” system used by heavier aircraft.

It made a debut with Japan’s All Nippon Airways, 2,598 of the planes have been ordered by more than 80 airlines around the world, with 889 still awaiting delivery. Boeing says the use of the 787 has opened up 180 such “point-to-point” routes, more than the 80 initially banked upon.

There are 27 legacy B787-8s with Air India. In the wide-body category, Air India now has 6 A350s, 19 B777-300 ERs, 5 B777-200 LRs, 7 B787-9s and 27 B787-8s. Among the narrow-body fleet are 6 A319s, 94 A320 neos, 4 A320 ceos, 13 A321 ceos and 10 A321 neos.

There are currently three versions of the 787: the 787-8, which can carry up to 248 passengers over distances up to 13,530 kilometres (8,400 miles); the 787-9, carrying up to 296 passengers up to 14,010 kilometres; and the 787-10, with up to 330 passengers, up to 11,910 kilometres. The 787-8 aircraft is the smallest of three variants.

The twin-engine 787 comes with a choice of two types of engine, supplied by GE Aerospace or Britain’s Rolls-Royce. The engines on the crashed plane were supplied by General Electric, which said it would support the investigation.

Setbacks

Boeing’s programme for the 787 had suffered several setbacks, including repeated and costly delivery suspensions between 2021 and 2023, mainly due to assembly faults and manufacturing quality issues. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ended up reinforcing quality assurance checks and inspections on the production lines.

In terms of sales, Boeing is facing headwinds. The manufacturer did not deliver any aircraft to China in May, despite having a green light from Beijing, which the month before had temporarily barred Chinese airlines from dealing with the company because of the trade war unleashed by Washington.

Previous Incidents

In July 2013, an empty Ethiopian Airlines 787 caught fire on the ground at Heathrow airport in London in an incident later linked to a short-circuit in an Emergency Locator Transmitter.

Also in 2013, regulators temporarily grounded the global 787 fleet following the overheating of lithium batteries on two Japanese planes in Tokyo and Boston, resulting in design changes to better contain the risk of thermal runaway.

In March last year, at least 50 people were hurt when a 787 operated by LATAM Airlines dropped abruptly in mid-flight from Sydney to Auckland. Investigators focused on an involuntary forward movement in the pilot seat.