There were crashes on the Air India flight bound for London
The Ahmedabad tragedy: a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner on a long-term mission to save the lives of many, many lives
An Air India flight crashed into a building shortly after taking off from India, in the city of Ahmedabad. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner had been bound for London’s Gatwick Airport. Air India said that there were only one person on the plane who survived.
Smoke was seen billowing from the site of the plane crash in the city of Ahmedabad which has a population of over five million.
The Civil Aviation Minister of India is Ram Mohan. Naidu Kinjarapu posted on X that rescue teams have been mobilized, and all efforts are being made to ensure medical aid and relief support at the site.
Boeing 787 Dreamliner planes have experienced operational problems in the past with passengers onboard, resulting in injuries. There have not been any fatal accidents in previous incidents with the Boeing 787-9 aircraft, according to the Aviation Safety Network database.
In April 2024, the Federal Aviation Administration said it was investigating claims made by a Boeing engineer who said that sections of the fuselage of the 787 Dreamliner, the model involved in the crash in India on Thursday, were improperly fastened together and could break apart mid-flight after thousands of trips.
As part of the deal, Boeing would still have to admit to obstructing federal oversight, pay a fine, contribute to a fund for the families of the victims and invest in safety and quality programs. The deal was opposed by many families of the crash victims.
Other prominent safety issues have been faced by the airplane manufacturer. In January 2024, a hole blew open on a Boeing 737 Max 9 during an Alaska Airlines flight, exposing passengers to forceful winds. Boeing told regulators in August of that year it would redesign the panels to better detect any malfunctions.
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Kelly Ortberg, the company’s chief executive, described 2025 as “our turnaround year” in a message to employees in April, when the company released better-than-expected quarterly financial results.
It’s not known what caused the 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.
It was not clear how many casualties there were from the flight, a Boeing 787 which was bound for London’s Gatwick Airport. But Air India said on X that the flight was carrying 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, one Canadian and seven Portuguese. Several videos posted by residents show charred bodies and body parts at the crash site.
An official in a hospital who was not authorized to speak to the media said that people who were impacted by the crash may include students at the school’s hostel. She said that the hospital is taking in casualties.
Natarajan Chandrasekaran said in a statement that the flight was involved in a tragic incident. He said the conglomerate was assisting the emergency response teams and providing care and support to those impacted. The airport where the flight departed from has now suspended operations.
The New York Times reported in April 2024 that the Federal Aviation Administration was investigating claims made by a whistleblower – a Boeing engineer – who claimed that sections of the 787 Dreamliner were improperly fastened together and could break apart after thousands of trips. At the time, Boeing told the Times that they had “determined that this is not an immediate safety of flight issue.”
But Boeing pushed back on those allegations. The company conducted extensive testing for fatigue in the plane’s exterior, but they weren’t alarmed by it.
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.
Flight 171: The First Jet Ever Arrived from an Airliner, according to Cirium and a U.S. Air Transport Investigation
The agency will lead a team of US investigators to assist in the investigation.
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.
“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.”
Air India received the first Boeing jet in 1960, according to India’s Ministry of Civil Aviation.
Flight 171 took off at 1 pm local time on Thursday, after deviating from the runway and arriving at the end of the runway.
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.
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.
VT-ANB is the name of the plane that was Flight 171. 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 National Transportation Safety Board investigator Jeff Guzzetti said it seems like the plane is unable to climb, reacting to the videos that seem to show 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.”
An Air India Dreamliner crashed into a building shortly after taking off from the Ahmedabad airport on Thursday. The National Transportation Safety Board investigator Jeff Guzzetti said it seems that the plane is unable to climb, reacting to the videos that seem to show the crash. There have not been any fatalities in previous incidents with the Boeing 787 aircraft, according to the Aviation Safety Network database.