Boeing 787: With a History Of Faulty Concerns, Is It Safe?

Entrepreneur

16 hours ago

The Boeing 787-8 models faced repeated scrutiny over safety and production practices. From John Barnett to Salehpour, Boeing whistleblowers had already warned of 787 Dreamliner concerns
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The Air India Ahmedabad-London flight which crashed on Thursday afternoon, marked the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner's first fatal crash since the aircraft's introduction in 2011. As per the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the plane issued a MAYDAY call immediately after takeoff but no further responses were recorded. Reportedly, 265 people have died.
Prior to the crash, there were more than 1,100 variants of 787s in service since its inception. The company's website described it as 'best-selling passenger wide-body of all time', the aircraft have carried more than one billion passengers. However, the Dreamliner's troubles are a series of compounding issues plaguing the aircraft with development delays and cost overruns to faulty parts and whistleblower allegations.
The Boeing 787-8 models faced repeated scrutiny over safety and production practices. From John Barnett to Salehpour, Boeing whistleblowers had already warned of 787 Dreamliner flaws. Technical issues have led to cancellations and maintenance delays across operators using the model.
In 2024, whistleblower, Sam Salehpour, a Boeing engineer with 17 years of experience, reported that the 787's fuselage was fastened improperly. He described workers misaligning sections together which could create gaps and fatigue cracks mid air. John Barnett, a former Boeing quality manager, had also raised similar concerns stating that under pressure to meet deadlines, workers were installing substandard parts. These claims were rejected by Boeing.
In early 2025, the Dreamliner's woes increased when Italian authorities uncovered a fraud scheme involving over 4,800 defective parts installed in Boeing 787s in service. From structural fittings to hydraulic systems, these parts were deemed non-compliant with aerospace standards, raising alarm about the safety of aircraft already in service.
Boeing's safety issues are not only with Dreamliner, two major crashes involving Boeing planes new 737 Max model were reported in Indonesia and Ethiopia in 2018 and 2019. That model was taken out of service for almost a year, before being relaunched. The last Air India crash, in August 2020, involved a smaller Boeing 737-800 Air India Express which was landing at Calicut airport in bad weather and skidded off the runway.
The London-bound flight's accident is under investigation and analysis of the black box data recorders, including the cockpit voice recorder, are awaited.
"It's true that Boeing have had a bad time in the last few years, however the 787 has 1175 aircraft flying world wide, having done 5 million flights with 30 million flying hours over 15 years. This is the first major incident / accident of any kind of the 787, so it's a very safe aircraft as far as I'm concerned," said Sanjay Lazar, an aviation expert.
In a statement, DGCA said the flight was operated by Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, an LTC with 8,200 flying hours, and a co-pilot with 1,100 hours of experience.
"Both pilots were highly qualified and had close to 10,000 hours of flying. It appears to have been something extraordinary that happened as visuals suggest that the aircraft could not climb, and had no thrust, so either it was a catastrophic failure of both engines or some major ingestion into the engines. There will be an analysis of the black boxes and a thorough investigation by the AAIB & the NTSB and we will learn what happened," Lazar explained.
In an official statement, Boeing president and CEO Kelly Ortberg said, "Our deepest condolences go out to the loved ones of the passengers and crew on board Air India Flight 171, as well as everyone affected in Ahmedabad. I have spoken with Air India Chairman N. Chandrasekaran to offer our full support, and a Boeing team stands ready to support the investigation led by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau."