A view shows the wreckage of an Air India aircraft, bound for Gatwick Airport in London, which crashed when taking off an airport in Ahmedabad, India, June 12, 2025.
Adnan Abidi | Reuters
An India air plane which was bound for London and carrying 242 people crashed a few seconds after takeoff in western India on Thursday, killing all people except one on board the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
He marked the first crash of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner and was the deadliest plane crash in years.
Here's what you need to know:
What kind of plane was it?
The plane was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner. It is a popular duplicate jet used for longer routes.
The first flight of this plane took place in December 2013 and it was released India in January 2014, according to the aviation data company Cirium.
Air India had 34 in service on Thursday, including this plane, and he planned to order at least 20 others, said Cirium. The airline has built its fleet with modern jets from Boeing and Rival Airbus, and installing more luxurious cabins.
There are more than 1,100 Dreamliners flying in the world.
What happened on this flight?
Preliminary data show that the plane signal was lost at 1:38 p.m. local time, less than a minute after takeoff from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel of Ahmedabad, according to Flight Tracker Flightradar24.
The plane reached a maximum altitude of 625 feet, although the altitude of the airport is about 200 feet, noted Flightradar.
It is not clear why the plane lost altitude so quickly before it crashed in a fireball in a residential area. Other deaths on the ground have been reported to the local media.
Air accidents can be caused by a variety of factors, from mechanical fauna problems to pilot error, and often involve more than one problem.
What will the investigators see?
The respondents will comb the rubble for the so-called black boxes: cockpit and flight data recorders. They will give Crash investigators indices about what was going on on the flight.
The crash investigators will examine everything, from maintenance files to the airline with pilots' maneuvers, the position of the plane as well as slats and shutters on the wings, drivers training and recent rest and weather conditions on the hot day, when temperatures were close to 100 degrees Farenheit.
They will also examine the video of the incident, including images from the plane that takes off from Ahmedabad.
As part of international protocols, the country where the incident occurred will take the investigation while the aircraft manufacturer, Boeing, and the manufacturer of aircraft engines, Ge aerospaceAs well as the federal investigators of American federal accidents will participate.
There have been manufacturing and quality concerns about Dreamliners before. Are they linked?
It is not immediately clear, and a final report on the causes of the accident may not be available until next year, but some experts have pushed a manufacturing problem, in part because the plane has been flying for more than a decade.
“I do not think that this is a problem of manufacturing or production,” said Jeff Guzzetti, a retirement investigator of the AUTIAL Safety of the US National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration.
He said it was too early to say what the problem is – or problems – because air accidents often involve several failures.
“It seems that the plane leaves the track without problem, but for any reason, it could not climb,” he said.
Boeing has already had problems with the Dreamliner, but an immediate connection was not apparent, experts said.
A denunciator last year alleged that Boeing had taken shortened on the 787 to reduce the bottlenecks of strangulation and created “excessive stress” on the main plane joints. Boeing denied the accusations.
The airplane deliveries were also put to the ground for about a year until mid-2012 due to manufacturing defects where the parts of the fuselage were poorly spaced.
After the Dreamliner entered service for the first time in 2011, the planes were put to the ground for inspections due to fears of lithium battery fires.
What does that mean for Boeing?
The CEO of Boeing, Kelly Ortberg, who took the reins last August, worked to move the manufacturer, a higher American exporter, in the honor of a series of safety and manufacturing crises.
The company had already been in shock from two accidents of its most sold maximum planes when a door cap exploded with a new max 9 at the beginning of 2024.
The impact on Boeing will depend on the investigation into the accident. The demand for new planes has always been robust and airlines often continue to place orders because the waiting period can extend several years.
Wolfe Research said in a note Thursday that “we do not see much direct impact on financial performance, but it is certain to undermine the momentum until a solid clarity is provided.
“We do not see any impact on the production ramp following this and we expect any impact on demand to be also very minimal (and located),” wrote Wolfe. “A modest risk could be any feedback loop to the certification of the [yet-to-be-certified] 777X, but it is very early to size any risk there. “”
Boeing has orders for 900 more dreamliners, according to his website.