Air India crash puts spotlight on Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner safety and the company's recent troubles

[ad_1] The Air India aircraft crash on Thursday is placing a renewed highlight on Boeing, the producer of the 787-8 Dreamliner plane that crashed within the western Indian metropolis of Ahmedabad with 242 passengers and crew on board.

Boeing says the 787-8 is the aviation business's "best-selling passenger widebody of all time," carrying multiple billion passengers because it was first delivered to airways in 2011.

"We're involved with Air India relating to Flight 171 and stand able to help them. Our ideas are with the passengers, crew, first responders and all affected," Boeing stated in a press release to CBS Information.

Shares of Boeing fell $15.34, or 7.2%, to $198.66 in pre-market buying and selling.

First crash of a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner The Air India incident represents the primary crash of a 787-8 Dreamliner, though the plane has been concerned in earlier investigations.

The Federal Aviation Administration final yr ordered inspections of the cockpit seats on the Dreamliners after one of many jets went right into a dive when the captain's seat lurched ahead with out warning and disconnected the aircraft's autopilot system, in keeping with the Related Press.

Final yr, a whistleblower's allegations prompted the FAA to analyze his claims about meeting defects within the firm's 787 Dreamliner.

Sam Salehpour, a Boeing high quality engineer, stated "he noticed shortcuts taken by Boeing" in the course of the meeting of the aircraft, "leading to drilling particles left in interfaces and deformation of composite materials," CBS Information reported. He additionally claimed to have witnessed points with the 777 meeting course of, in keeping with a letter despatched by Salehpour's legal professionals to the FAA final yr.

For now, it's unclear if these reported points are linked in any option to the Air India crash.

The Dreamliner within the Air India crash The plane concerned within the Air India crash was first delivered to the airline in January 2014. It was on its method from the western Indian metropolis of Ahmedabad to London's Gatwick airport when it crashed shortly after its departure.

The aircraft had logged greater than 41,000 hours of flying time, with nearly 8,000 takeoffs and landings, in keeping with Cirium, an aviation analytics agency. Air India operates 190 plane, with a median age of 8.4 years, Cirium stated.

There are greater than 1,100 Dreamliners working throughout the globe right this moment, with the plane having been in operation for a median of seven.5 years, Cirium famous.

Different Boeing issues of safety The incident comes after a string of issues of safety for Boeing, which has confronted investigations and lawsuits for 2 crashes involving its 737 Max jetliners that killed a complete of 346 folks.

In Might, the plane producer reached a $1.1 billion deal with the Division of Justice that permits it to keep away from prosecution for the crashes, which occurred in 2018 and 2019.

—With reporting by CBS Information' Kathryn Krupnik and Kris Van Cleave

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Aimee Picchi

Aimee Picchi is the affiliate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, the place she covers enterprise and private finance. She beforehand labored at Bloomberg Information and has written for nationwide information retailers together with USA As we speak and Client Reviews.