What we know about the Boeing 787 Dreamliner in the deadly Air India crash
The Dreamliner has no previous fatal accidents. The 737 Max, however, has had issues
The type of plane in the Air India flight that crashed on Thursday in northwestern India with more than 240 people on board has a "stellar safety record," according to one aviation expert.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed into Meghani Nagar, a residential area in India's northwestern city of Ahmedabad, about five minutes after taking off. It was bound for London.
"You could tell that the jet was struggling very, very hard to maintain lift, so that tells me that there was either some kind of malfunction or some sort of mechanical failure," Dan Bubb, a former pilot and an aviation historian at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, told CBC News Network.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is a newer plane and has "a stellar safety record," he added.
Air India said that in addition to 169 Indian nationals, there were 53 British citizens, seven from Portugal and one Canadian citizen on board.
The Canadian citizen has been identified by family as Nirali Sureshkumar Patel, a dentist from Mississauga, Ont.
Hospital officials have told The Associated Press that they've received 186 bodies and one lone survivor from the crash.
Here's what we know about the plane.
The 787 Dreamliner is a wide-body, twin-engined plane.
The 787-8 typically holds 248 passengers, and the larger and longer-range 787-9 carries 296 people. The largest variant, the 787-10, which also has the smallest range, has 336 seats, according to Boeing data.
The 787-8 aircraft involved in Thursday's accident was delivered in 2014 and is the smallest of three variants.
The aircraft was introduced in 2009 and more than 1,000 have been delivered to dozens of airlines, according to the Flightradar24 website. American Airlines has the largest Dreamliner fleet, while Air Canada also has dozens in operation.
1st fatal crash of Boeing 787
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is one of the most advanced jets in service, and experts say it has a generally strong safety record, with no previous fatal accidents.
"It's the first fatal crash for the 787," Keith Mackey, president of aviation consulting firm Mackey International and a former pilot, told CBC News Network on Thursday morning.
"Boeing will certainly be involved in the investigation, and hopefully we figure out what caused it, so it never happens again."
Aircraft accidents are still incredibly rare, Prof. Graham Braithwaite, director of aerospace and aviation at Cranfield University in the U.K., told the Science Media Center.
"Especially involving modern aircraft types such as the Boeing 787."
It's a wonderful aircraft that's popular for international flights, aviation historian Bubb said, noting he suspects the investigations into the crash will include how Air India maintained the plane.
"If it was maintained to standards, then they will look more closely at Boeing," he explained. "If they find the plane was not maintained to standards, then they're going to look deeper into Air India's maintenance program."
Other, non-fatal accidents
In July 2013, an empty Ethiopian Airlines 787 caught fire on the ground at Heathrow Airport in London in an incident later linked to a short-circuit in an emergency locator transmitter.
Also in 2013, regulators temporarily grounded the global 787 fleet following the overheating of lithium batteries on two Japanese planes in Tokyo and Boston, resulting in design changes.
In March last year, at least 50 people were hurt when a 787 operated by LATAM Airlines dropped abruptly in mid-flight from Sydney to Auckland. Investigators focused on an involuntary forward movement in the pilot seat.
What happened in India
The plane appeared to make a normal takeoff and climbed to about 625 feet, "when the data ceased to be transmitted," Mackey told CBC News Network.
From there, the plane starts descending, "as if it had lost power," Mackey said, adding that he is just speculating, but from the video he's seen, that's what it looks like.
"Why did we not climb and descend instead?" he asked.
It's unusual for a crash to occur so soon after takeoff, Braithwaite said.
"Takeoff is a critical stage, because the aircraft is still accelerating and any problem-solving requires a rapid response," he said.
Boeing 787s in Canada
WestJet and Air Canada both have 787s in their fleet. Air Canada flies eight Boeing 787-8s and 32 787-9s, according to its website. They fly the Dreamliners on 31 routes around the world.
WestJet flies seven Boeing 787-9s, but no 787-8s, according to its website. The 787-9 is the largest aircraft in its fleet.
Recent Boeing issues
The Max version of Boeing's best-selling 737 airplane has been the source of persistent troubles for Boeing after two of the jets crashed. The crashes, one in Indonesia in 2018 and another in Ethiopia in 2019, killed 346.
The problem stemmed from a sensor providing faulty readings that pushed the nose down, leaving pilots unable to regain control. After the second crash, Max jets were grounded worldwide until the company redesigned the system.
Last month, the Justice Department reached a deal to allow Boeing to avoid criminal prosecution for allegedly misleading U.S. regulators about the Max before the two crashes.
Worries about the plane flared up again after a door plug blew off a Max operated by Alaska Airlines, leading regulators to cap Boeing's production at 38 jets per month.
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With files from the Associated Press and Reuters