An expert weighs in on the Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner crash : NPR

An Air India flight ended in catastrophe Thursday, as Flight 171 crashed into a building in a residential area shortly after taking off in Ahmedabad, India. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner had been bound for London’s Gatwick Airport. The aircraft had 242 people on board — only one person, a passenger, survived, Air India said.

Casualties are feared to include people who were inside or near the building the plane struck: a hostel in the B.J. Medical College in Ahmedabad.

The tragedy is the first recorded incident of a complete loss of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, an airliner that had its initial flight in 2009.

Surveillance and witness videos from the scene suggest the plane may have been in the air for only around 30 seconds struggling to gain altitude before it descended and crashed.

“It just appears to me that the airplane is unable to climb,” former National Transportation Safety Board investigator Jeff Guzzetti told NPR, reacting to videos that apparently captured the moments before the crash. “It was able to take off from the runway and get up to 500 feet, but it just wasn’t able to climb after that.”

Information is still emerging about the crash. Here are some key questions:

Who was on the plane?

Flight 171 took off with 242 passengers and crew on board, according to Air India.

The airline provided a breakdown of the passengers who were on the Boeing 787-8:

169 Indian nationals;
53 British nationals;
7 Portuguese nationals;
1 Canadian national

Air India has set up two hotlines for families and loved ones to call for information about passengers.

What type of Boeing jet was involved?

Flight 171 was a 787-8, registered as VT-ANB. The aircraft was manufactured in Seattle, Wash., and delivered to Air India on Jan. 28, 2014, according to data from Cirium, an aviation analytics firm. 

The 11-year-old jet had accumulated more than 41,000 hours of flying time, and almost 8,000 takeoffs and landings, which is average for an aircraft of its age, according to Cirium. 

In the past week alone, the airliner had completed at least 11 international trips, with destinations ranging from Paris and Frankfurt to Melbourne and Tokyo, according to the tracking site Flightradar 24.

Departing early Thursday afternoon local time, Flight 171 used “the full length of Runway 23 at Ahmedabad,” having “backtracked to the end of the runway before beginning its take off roll,” Flightradar 24 said via Bluesky.

The Boeing 787-8 is the smallest and oldest version of the Dreamliner series, able to carry up to 248 passengers, according to the aircraft maker. The model’s fuel efficiency and long range have made it popular with airlines. While the variants differ in length, all Dreamliners have the same wingspan of nearly 200 feet, Boeing says.

Boeing and Air India have a long-standing relationship, with the airline taking delivery of its first Boeing jet, a 707-437, in 1960, according to India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation.

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

What happened to the airliner?

It’s far too early to know what caused the devastating crash. But aviation experts say they’re able to draw some information from watching footage of the plane’s brief flight — and point to questions that investigators will likely explore.

Guzzetti says he sees several potential explanations.

“Perhaps the engines were not putting out the amount of power they needed to be putting out,” Guzzetti said, “although I don’t see smoke or burping or flames coming from the engines. So it could be just a computer programming issue with the engines.”

Some aviation experts also noted that the wing flaps on the Dreamliner did not appear to be extended. Those flaps are normally extended during takeoff to help increase lift and lower stall speed.

“They need to be extended a little bit before takeoff,” Guzzetti said, “But it might be just very, very difficult to discern that from the video.”

The National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday morning via  X that the agency will lead a team of U.S. investigators to assist in the crash investigation.

What about Boeing quality concerns?

There have been quality and safety concerns about the Dreamliner in the past — but none of the planes had ever crashed before. 

Federal regulators grounded the entire 787 fleet worldwide for more than three months after lithium ion batteries caught fire on two of the aircraft in 2013, leading to smoldering fires in the cargo hold. Boeing had to craft a workaround and created a metal box to surround the batteries to prevent fires from spreading. 

There have also been concerns about the plane’s carbon fiber fuselage. Last year, a whistleblower said he had observed problems with how parts of the plane were fastened together. The longtime Boeing engineer warned that production “shortcuts” could significantly shorten the lifespan of the plane, eventually causing the fuselage to fall apart in mid-flight.

But Boeing pushed back on those allegations. Engineering executives at the company defended the integrity of the 787’s fuselage, saying they had conducted extensive testing with no findings of fatigue in the composite fuselage. 

As for what caused the crash of the 787-8 in Ahmedabad, experts say it could be months or years before a complete answer emerges.