>"It could take months or years to determine the cause of Air India’s crash on Thursday, but the type of plane involved in the episode, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, has been under scrutiny for years." -------------------- By: John Yoon, Suhasini Raj, Isabella Kwai and Pragati K.B. Published in: *The New York Times* Date: June 12, 2025 Here’s the latest.
An Air India flight carrying 242 passengers and crew members crashed shortly after taking off in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad on Thursday. There was no immediate information about survivors, but India’s health minister said “many people” had died. The plane, which took off at 1:38 p.m. and was bound for London Gatwick Airport, crashed into a dining facility at a local medical college. At least five students died, according to Minakshi Parikh, the dean of the college. Footage and photos of the crash site showed plumes of black smoke coming from the wreckage and firefighters dousing charred residential buildings. The plane’s tail appeared to be hanging out of a damaged building. The airline said that the plane, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, was carrying 169 Indian citizens, 53 British, seven Portuguese and one Canadian. Injured people were being taken to hospitals, the airline said, but it was unclear whether they had been on the ground or on the flight. The plane departed from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, which temporarily shut down after the crash. It had been scheduled to land in London at 6:25 p.m., London Gatwick Airportsaid. Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India said the crash was “heartbreaking beyond words” in a statement on social media. “In this sad hour,” he added, “my thoughts are with everyone affected by it.” Here’s what else to know: Boeing troubles: Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft have experienced operational problems with passengers onboard, resulting in evacuations and injuries. There have been no fatal crashes previously recorded for the aircraft, according to the Aviation Safety Network database. Passengers: Aboard the plane was Vijay Rupani, the chief minister of the state of Gujarat from 2016 to 2021, according to a passenger list confirmed by officials of his party. Britain’s reaction: The British government said it was working with the Indian authorities to “urgently establish the facts,” and opened a hotline for British citizens in India seeking information about the crash. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that scenes of the crash were “devastating” and that he was being updated on the situation. Air India: Natarajan Chandrasekaran, the chairman of Air India, said that the company was focused on “supporting all the affected people and their families” and assisting emergency response teams at the crash site. The country’s flagship carrier, Air India has worked to improve its safety record after several dangerous incidents. In August 2020, an Air India Express flight overshot the runway in the city of Kozhikode, killing 21 people ------------------------------ By: Niraj Choksi Published in: *The New York Times* Date: June12, 2025 It could take months or years to determine the cause of Air India’s crash on Thursday, but the type of plane involved in the episode, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, has been under scrutiny for years. Until Thursday, the Dreamliner had never been in a fatal crash, according to a review of accident data maintained by Cirium, an aviation data firm. In a statement, Boeing said that it was aware of the crash on the Air India flight and was “working to gather more information.” Plane crashes are typically caused by multiple factors that can include things like bird strikes, pilot error, manufacturing defects and inadequate maintenance. The first Dreamliner was delivered in 2011 to All Nippon Airways, Japan’s largest airline. There are more than 1,100 in service today. Air India flies nearly three dozen of the large jets that are typically used for international flights, according to Cirium. The plane involved in the crash, a 787-8, was built in 2013. But Dreamliner deliveries were paused for more than a year until the summer of 2022, when the Federal Aviation Administration approved a Boeing plan to address quality concerns that included filling paper-thin gaps in the plane’s body and replacing certain titanium parts that were made with the wrong material. None of those problems had an immediate impact on the safety of Dreamliners, Boeing said at the time. Last year, the F.A.A. said it was also investigating claims by a Boeing engineer that parts of the fuselage, or body, of the Dreamliner were improperly fastened together, which the whistle-blower said could cause premature damage to the plane over years of use. Boeing disputed that, including at a briefing last year for reporters at the factory in North Charleston, S.C. where the Dreamliner is assembled. Two top Boeing engineers said at the time the company had found no evidence to support the engineer’s concerns after conducting exhaustive tests, inspections and analyses of the plane during its development and in recent years. One 787 airframe was subjected to testing that put it through 165,000 “flight cycles,” and the equivalent pressurization and depressurization of as many flights. That figure far exceeded the plane’s expected useful life and the airframe still showed no signs of fatigue, Steve Chisholm, a vice president and the functional chief engineer for mechanical and structural engineering at Boeing, said at the briefing in South Carolina. At the time, the Dreamliner with the longest record had seen only about a tenth as many flights in the dozen years it had been in operation, the company said. Boeing had also said then that nearly 700 Dreamliners had gone through thorough six-year maintenance checks, and eight had gone through 12-year checks. Mechanics found no signs of premature fatigue in those jets, Boeing said.
