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Boeing 787 Crash in Ahmedabad Triggers Global Scrutiny of Dreamliner Safety
Published : Jun 16, 2025 17:01 IST - 4 MINS READ
As many as three flights involving Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft returned to the port of departure over the past two days in what seems to be a precautionary reaction to the first-ever crash of a 787 aircraft in Ahmedabad soon after take-off on June 12.
The Hong Kong-New Delhi Air India Flight 315, which departed from Hong Kong on June 16 after a delay of over three hours, headed back to the airport. When it turned back, the seven-year-old 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft was more than an hour into the flight. It landed safely.
On June 15, a British Airways Boeing 787-8 from London's Heathrow and headed to Chennai, returned to London soon after take-off. The captain apparently reported a 'flap adjustment failure' and the aircraft had to dump fuel ahead of landing in London.
In the third case, a Hyderabad-bound Lufthansa 787-9 aircraft from Frankfurt had to return to base because of a bomb threat. Obviously the third was not an aircraft issue, but a security-related one.
The Ahmedabad incident has prompted a flurry of activity at the Indian and international levels to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The Directorate-General of Civil Aviation, which initially contemplated grounding all the 787 Dreamliners, later settled for enhanced inspection of all the aircraft.
Also Read | Air India flight crashes in Ahmedabad minutes after takeoff, over 200 feared dead
Of 33 such aircraft in Air India's inventory, the process has been completed in as many as 22 aircraft.
The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is the primary agency handling the investigation. It is assisted by the United Kingdom's Air Accidents Investigation Branch. There is also a Boeing team on the ground in Ahmedabad, along with a team from the National Transportation Safety Board of the US. Union Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu told reporters in Ahmedabad that a report on the accident would be made available in three months.
787 all over the world
The 787 series aircraft cannot be wished away suddenly. According to Boeing, the plane has carried a billion passengers as of April 30. '425 plus new, non-stop routes opened, 2,100 flights each day, 30 million plus flight hours,' the company said in a post on its handle on X. There are over 1,100 aircraft of the 787 type in service with airlines across the world.
The entire 787 aircraft fleet was once grounded in 2013, its second year of service, after heating problems involving the lithium-ion batteries placed in the aircraft. After extensive investigations and replacement of some crucial equipment, the aircraft was permitted to carry on in business. In 2013, 2014, and in 2017, there were problems with the overheating of the lithium-ion batteries.
The problems are cropping up at a time when Boeing is trying to salvage its image following problems with the 737 Max type aircraft. Because of a problem with the planes, which seemed to evade a solution for months, all 737 Max aircraft had to be grounded, leading to huge losses to both Boeing as well as airlines. In May, Boeing opted to settle two cases where two 737 Max aircraft crashed.
Also Read | Ahmedabad Dreamliner crash raises new questions about Boeing's safety culture
In the US, the image of an emergency exit door flying away from an Alaska Airlines 737 Max aircraft last year is still fresh in memory because of the dramatic manner in which the accident occurred. As with most accidents in the recent past, many passengers captured the scenes with their phones.
PR nightmare
The public relations nightmare is not new and does not seem to be ending. An Al-Jazeera investigation in 2014 asked some Boeing employees if they would prefer to fly on the Dreamliner and found out that 'of the 15 Boeing workers asked randomly, 10 said they would not fly on a Dreamliner.' The April 2025 depositions in the US Senate did not help Boeing's case either. Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg admitted to 'serious missteps' in the recent past and added that the company had learnt its lessons.
This year, there were two dramatic air accidents, both in January. On January 29, an American Eagle Flight collided with a US Army helicopter in Washington, DC, killing all 64 on board the plane and three on board the helicopter. Just a day before, an Air Busan Airbus flight caught fire shortly before take-off at Busan. All 176 on board survived. This naturally leads one to ask: How safe is flying? has the answer.
'A recent airline safety study revealed that between 2018 and 2022, the global death risk per flight boarding was approximately one in 13.7 million. In comparison, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated 1.19 million fatalities from road accidents in 2023, equating to more than two deaths per these statistics underscore the relative safety of flying, the loss of over 200 lives in December 2024 alone significantly surpasses the 72 fatalities recorded by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in 2023.'
