TORONTO — The crash of a Boeing 787 passenger jet in India minutes after takeoff on Thursday is putting the spotlight back on a beleaguered manufacturer though it was not immediately clear why the plane crashed.
The Air India 787 went down in the northwestern city of Ahmedabad shortly after takeoff.
It was the first fatal crash since the plane, also known as the Dreamliner, went into service in 2009, according to the Aviation Safety Network database.
The Gatwick Airport-bound flight was carrying 242 passengers and crew. Of those, Air India said there were 169 Indians, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian. The Canadian citizen is a dentist from Mississauga, ON. The husband of Nirali Sureshkumar Patel said she was among the 240 passengers on the London-bound flight. The lone passenger who survived the crash is a British national of Indian origin.
The 787 was the first airliner to make extensive use of lithium ion batteries, which are lighter, recharge faster and can hold more energy than other types of batteries. In 2013 the 787 fleet was temporarily grounded because of overheating of its lithium-ion batteries, which in some cases sparked fires.
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 flew off a Max operated by Alaska Airlines, leading regulators to cap Boeing’s production at 38 jets per month.
Boeing posted a loss of $11.8 billion in 2024, bringing its total losses since 2019 to more than $35 billion.
The company’s financial problems were compounded by a strike by machinists who assemble the airplanes at its factories in Renton and Everett, WA, which halted production at those facilities and hampered Boeing’s delivery capability.
For the first three months of 2025, Boeing reported a narrower loss of $31 million compared with the previous year. CEO Kelly Ortberg said Boeing made progress on stabilizing operations during the quarter.
The stepped-up government scrutiny and the workers’ strike resulted in Boeing’s aircraft deliveries sliding last year.
Boeing said it supplied 348 jetliners in 2024, which was a third fewer than the 528 that it reported for the previous year.
The company delivered less than half the number of commercial aircraft to customers than its main rival Airbus, which reported delivering 766 commercial jets in 2023.
Still, Boeing’s troubles haven’t turned off airline customers from buying its jets. Last month the company secured big orders from two Middle Eastern customers. The deals included a $96 billion order for 787 and 777X jets from Qatar, which it said was the biggest order for 787s and wide body jets in the company’s history.