The Ahmedabad air disaster is yet another tragedy involving Boeing – but the first fatal crash involving the ‘star’ of its fleet the 787 Dreamliner.
The Air India aircraft, scheduled to arrive at London Gatwick at 6pm today, tragically crashed onto homes in the Meghani area of Gujarat, the largest city in the state, shortly after taking off.
As the national carrier of India, Air India is currently conducting an investigation into the circumstances that led to the crash of the plane, which was believed to be transporting 242 passengers and crew members from India to the UK.
Aboard the aircraft were 169 Indian citizens, 53 British nationals, one Canadian, and seven individuals from Portugal. Authorities have confirmed that there are no survivors, while experts in aviation suggest that the 787-8 Dreamliner may have experienced a sudden loss of power.
Other possible causes are believed to include a rapid change in wind or a bird strike with the investigation into the first fatal air accident involving the state-of-the-art Dreamliner jet already underway.
Aviation expert Julian Bray said: ‘This is a state of the art airliner, the Dreamliner, Boeing’s star product. They sort of fly themselves so there shouldn’t have been a problem’.
The Ahmedabad air disaster is the latest in a tragic spate of incidents involving crisis-hit Boeing and its planes.
Just six days ago the plane maker reached a $1.1 billion (£812 million) deal with the US Department of Justice to avoid prosecution over crashes involving a 737 Max plane that killed 346 people in Ethiopia and Indonesia in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
Both disasters were later traced to faulty flight control systems, leading to the worldwide grounding of the 737 Max fleet for nearly two years.
Last December a Boeing jet skidded off a runway in South Korea, crashing into a concrete wall, causing the plane to burst into flames.
All but two of the 181 people aboard the Boeing 737-800 were killed – the youngest victim being a three-year-old boy.
December 2024: A Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 series aircraft after the plane crashed and burst into flames. The plane carrying 181 people from Bangkok to South Korea crashed on arrival and 179 died
May 2024: A Boeing 737-38J carrying 78 passengers caught on fire and suffered serious damage when a failed takeoff attempt sent it skidding off the runway in Senegal
January 2024: Boeing was pushed into crisis mode after a door-plug panel blew off a 737 Max jetliners during an Alaska Airlines flight
March 11, 2019: Wreckage of the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-MAX plane. The plane crashed six minutes after takeoff, killing all 157 passengers on board
In the November a Boeing 737 cargo plane lost control on approach to Lithuania and crashed into a house, killing one and injuring three.
And weeks earlier a Boeing 737 carrying 78 passengers caught fire and suffered serious damage when a failed takeoff attempt sent it skidding off the runway and into the bush at an airport in Senegal.
In May 2024 America’s Federal Aviation Administration announced a new safety investigation into beleaguered jet maker Boeing.
The Wall Street Journal reported the target of the investigation is whether Boeing fulfilled safety inspection requirements on all of its troublesome 787 jets.
Regulators claimed that Boeing disclosed to them that their employees may have skipped some inspections on 787 Dreamliner planes.
December 2024: In Norway, a Boeing 737-800 jet just avoided disaster as it skid off the runway following a suspected hydraulics failure
November 11 2024: A Boeing 737-400F was destroyed after it caught fire mid-flight and landed at Sao Paulo, Brazil
November 2024: A DHL cargo flight lost control as it approached Vilnius Airport in Lithuania and crashed into a house, killing one person aboard and injuring three others
May 9 2024: a Boeing passenger plane came off the runway during takeoff from Dakar international airport, injuring 11 people and shutting the hub for hours
May 8 2024: A FedEx Airlines Boeing 767 cargo plane landed at Istanbul Airport without the front landing gear deployed
March 6 2024: a Boeing 737’s engine caught fire in mid-air above Texas, causing an emergency landing minutes into its journey to Fort Myers, Florida
The FAA added that it was investigating ‘whether Boeing completed the inspections and whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records.’
Three months the FAA issued a mandatory inspection order for Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
And in March 2024 a LATAM Airlines Boeing 787 suffered a horror flight incident that left more than 50 people injured, one seriously, when the plane nosedived.
The airline and passengers aboard the Sydney-Auckland flight said the plane with 263 passengers and nine crew members on board dropped abruptly mid-air.
On January 5 last year, a doorplug blew out midair on an Alaska Airlines flight. The Alaska Airlines plane that had its door blow out mid-flight at 16,000ft was a 737 Max 9.
Last year a Boeing whistleblower called for a criminal investigation to be opened into the beleaguered company because their ‘planes are not safe’.
Former senior manager at Boeing Ed Pierson said there have been too many faults with the planes.
The executive director of the Foundation of Aviation Safety has called for authorities to open up a criminal investigation as he fired a disturbing warning: ‘These airplanes are not safe. They are still not safe.’
Former senior manager at Boeing Ed Pierson (pictured) has called for a criminal investigation to be opened into the beleaguered company because their ‘planes are not safe’
Dozens of grounded Boeing 737 MAX aircraft are seen parked in an aerial photo at Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington, U.S. July 1, 2019
Nobody was hurt during the midair incident. Accident investigators determined that bolts that helped secure the panel to the frame of the Boeing 737 Max 9 were missing before the piece blew off.
The mishap has further battered Boeing’s reputation and led to multiple civil and criminal investigations.
Now, Mr Pierson has suggested Boeing may have failed to meet the FAA’s deadline and requested an extension after it was told to produce a turnaround plan following the blowout.
Mr Peirson told BBC Radio 4 this morning there needs to be action rather than words.
He said: ‘What really needs to happen, as we have said before, is there needs to be a full criminal investigation because these airplanes are not safe. They are still not safe.’
Last week Boeing reached a deal with the US Department of Justice to avoid prosecution over crashes involving a 737 Max plane that killed 346 people.
The agreement, outlined in a court filing this week, will see the aerospace giant pay $1.1 billion (£812 million), including a $487.2 million criminal penalty, half of which was already paid in a previous settlement.
The deal would also see $444.5m (£328m) in compensation to families of the crash victims.
But move has been blasted by the victims’ families’ lawyer, Sanjiv Singh, who told the BBC the deal was a ‘morally repugnant’ escape which allowed the firm to ‘sidestep true criminal accountability’.
If approved by a federal judge, the deal would protect the firm from a criminal fraud trial.
The two Boeing 737 Max crashes, which happened less than five months apart, claimed 346 lives and sparked global outrage.
In October 2018, Lion Air flight 610 plunged into the Java Sea shortly after takeoff from Jakarta, in Indonesia killing all 189 people on board.
Then, in March 2019, Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crashed minutes after departing Addis Ababa, resulting in the deaths of 157 passengers and crew.
