The deadly Air India crash involving a Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft has left air industry experts describing the disaster as “puzzling” given the plane’s safety record.
Air India Flight 171 crashed in the Indian city of Ahmedabad on Thursday shortly after takeoff, with more than 240 people on board.
According to Vidhi Chaudhary, a top state police officer in the city who spoke to the Associated Press, at least 240 people were killed and that number includes medical students who were in the medical school hostel the plane crashed into.
The plane in the crash was a Boeing 787 Dreamliner: a widebody, twin-engine aircraft that has never been involved in such a serious incident.
It’s an entirely different aircraft than another Boeing plane, the 737 MAX, which was involved in multiple deadly disasters before being grounded around the world for overhauls of a key flight sensor system and the associated software that repeatedly forced the planes into dangerous nosedives.
Those aircraft are now back in service and like the Dreamliners, are flown by airlines around the world including Canadian airlines.
“The 787 Dreamliner has been an aircraft that has been in operation now for many years, operating in large states around the world without any issues,” said Hassan Shahidi, president and CEO of the nonprofit Flight Safety Foundation.
“So from an aircraft design and safety perspective (it) is indeed safe and it is puzzling to see this crash happen at this time.”
Earlier Thursday, Ahmedabad police chief G.S. Malik told The Associated Press that it appeared there were no survivors in the plane crash, which was carrying more than 240 people.
However, Chaudhary and Indian Home Minister Amit Shah have since confirmed there was one survivor from the plane.
The Federation of All India Medical Association, a national body that represents resident doctors, said at least five students were killed on the ground and 50 others were injured.
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While this is the first major incident with a 787 Dreamliner, there have been past issues with the aircraft.
Last year, federal safety officials required inspections of the cockpit seats after one of the jets went into a dive when the captain’s seat lurched forward without warning and disconnected the plane’s autopilot system.
The 787 fleet was also grounded in 2013 when its lithium-ion batteries, used for their light weight and faster recharge time, were overheating and in some cases sparking fires.
But John Gradek, aviation management professor at McGill University, says such issues are a part of using planes and not something to concern travellers.
“This is a mechanical device, it’s not something that was magically put on earth and we fly it and we hopefully cross our fingers nothing will happen,” he said. “So the process that we have to maintain and to ensure the operational integrity of these mechanical devices is intense.”
He added: “This airplane over the last 20 years, over the last 15 years, has been an excellent example of mitigating risk and ensuring that the airplane has got the ability to accomplish its missions safely.”
India’s aviation regulatory body said the aircraft on Thursday gave a mayday call, signalling an emergency, but then did not respond to the calls made by airport traffic control.
That call will likely be among the factors that investigators look into during their probe of the crash, with U.S.-based aerospace safety consultant Anthony Brickhouse saying several factors come into play in a plane crash investigation.
“We are trained to answer three questions at the end of the process,” said Brickhouse, who formerly worked with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. “Those three questions are: what happened, why did it happen, and most importantly, what can be done to prevent it from happening again?”
He said investigations look at the humans connected to the incident such as pilots and air traffic control, the environment the plane was flying in like weather and the airport, and the machine itself.
This includes analysis of the flight and cockpit voice recorder.
Gradek says that investigation will be crucial in determining what caused the crash and to rule it out as a “Boeing issue,” especially following past concerns over the aircraft manufacturer.
Last month, the U.S. Justice Department reached a deal with Boeing that took criminal prosecution off the table for allegedly misleading regulators about the 737-MAX jetliner before the Lion Air crash in 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines crash of 2019.
The company agreed to pay or invest more than US$1.1 billion, including an additional US$445 million for crash victims’ families, removing the risk of a criminal conviction which would’ve jeopardized the company’s status as a federal contractor.
“What you want to make sure is that whenever you have a Boeing incident, Boeing accident in this case, (is) that you get to the root cause quickly … and that you ensure the public understands what that root cause was and don’t be afraid to point fingers at yourself,” Gradek said.
Shahidi says it’s understandable after a plane crash for people to be wary of travelling by air, but stressed the 787 Dreamliner is a safe aircraft and has flown for years — its first flight was in 2009, adding that the same statement can be said for most flights.
“There are thousands of flights to fly every day without any issues around the world,” he said.
“So I think for passengers, certainly this is a moment of reflection, but also it is important to note that we have a very safe air transportation system.”
Among the 40.6 million flights in 2024, just seven were fatal, according to the International Air Transport Association’s annual safety report.
That, Brickhouse says, is a testament to the safety of that form of travel.
“If you get to the airport and your aircraft is there, you have to trust that everything is in order,” he said. “I always tell people, once you make it to the airport, the most precarious part of your trip is actually over.”
–with files from The Associated Press