Air India flight AI171, which crashed seconds after takeoff from Ahmedabad airport on June 12 killing all but one on board, was a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Till that fateful day, not a single Dreamliner had been involved in a crash. The Dreamliner fleet has been airborne since 2011 and nearly every third widebody aircraft flying across the world today is a Boeing 787. The Ahmedabad crash is being seen as a rare occurrence, but what caused the crash?
Theories abound, but only two broad themes matter - was it equipment failure, or was it human error? Aviation experts have already ruled out environmental factors such as a storm, lightning, etc, since it was a clear day. Terrorism as a cause has also not been established till now, though it will be conclusively ruled out only after the investigation into the crash has been completed. According to reports, the preliminary probe report of the crash is expected to be released next week. So as of now, the only two plausible possibilities are: either the aircraft systems malfunctioned, or there was a cockpit error.
All Eyes On Boeing
Boeing & Co, the manufacturer of the Dreamliners, has found itself in the spotlight after this crash. It has anyway been under intense global scrutiny for alleged malpractices in quality checks while making aircraft, including the 787s, for some time now. Last year, Sam Salehpour, a veteran quality engineer with Boeing for the 777s and also other aircraft, including the 787s (Dreamliners), who later turned into a whistleblower, gave a written testimony to the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.
In his testimony, Salehpour alleged that Boeing prioritises "speed of production over safety and quality and incentivizes management to overlook significant defects in Boeing's airplanes". He said, "Despite what Boeing officials state publicly, there is no safety culture at Boeing and employees like me who speak up about defects with its production activities and lack of quality control are ignored, marginalized, threatened, sidelined, and worse." Some of Salehpour's allegations are quite damning, particularly on the 787s. Boeing has denied all of these allegations.
Salehpour went on to say that while working on the 787s in late 2020, he observed that Boeing had begun taking shortcuts to reduce bottlenecks in production and speed up the delivery of 787s, allowing defective parts and defective installations in the Dreamliner fleet. Specifically, he alleged that improper fastening of fuselage sections posed risks to the aircraft's longevity and could lead to a mid-flight breakup of the aircraft after many thousand trips. While the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
has taken note of Salehpour's allegations and started an investigation into Boeing's practices, the regulator has not come out with its findings till now. Perhaps the crash at Ahmedabad will spur the FAA to hasten the probe.
Not just Salhepour's allegations, Boeing has been in FAA crosshairs earlier too for the Dreamliner fleet. In 2013, two 787s operated by Japan Airlines caught fire, which was later attributed to overheating of the aircraft's lithium-ion batteries. At that time, the FAA had quickly grounded the whole of the Dreamliner fleet and had also banned fresh deliveries of these aircraft from Boeing. The manufacturer then fixed the problem by offering an improved battery insulation, among other solutions, before the Dreamliners were allowed to fly again.
So, in the aftermath of the deadly Ahmedabad crash, the FAA needs to not just close the existing probe and release its report, but perhaps Boeing should also be subjected to enhanced scrutiny.
What About Engine Maker?
But in all the focus on Boeing and its alleged malpractices, are we missing the woods for the trees? If the AI 171 crash involved a twin-engine failure, as is being widely believed now, shouldn't the engine manufacturer - GE Aerospace in this case - also have the spotlight turned on to itself? The aircraft that crashed was at least 12 years old, and it is unlikely that Boeing had anything significant to do with it in this period of time - while GE and the Air India maintenance teams would have had to do regular checks. So, along with questioning Boeing, perhaps tough posers should also be made to the maintenance practices at Air India and the role of GE Aerospace. Of course, if the investigation report points to a design flaw with aircraft, any software glitch in electronics, or so on, then Boeing would be culpable - simply because an aircraft engine does not work in isolation, it works in coordination with the rest of hardware and software.
DGCA's Hesitation
Across the globe, more than 1,100 Dreamliner aircraft are currently in operation with different airlines. Air India has 33 in its fleet, but the largest number of Dreamliners is currently being operated by a couple of American carriers. Their predominance in American airlines' fleets is perhaps one of the reasons the FAA has refrained from grounding the Dreamliner fleet after the Air India crash.
A Reuters report quotes US officials and FAA officials as saying that they had not seen any data that would require a grounding of all Dreamliners - as yet. But nothing explains the Indian safety regulator DGCA's reluctance to ground the Dreamliner fleet till investigators get some idea about what caused the crash.
The AI 171 crash is being probed by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), with experts from several countries joining in. Whatever the findings of the AAIB investigation, one thing is clear: the families and loved ones of the crash victims need answers, and these can only come when culpability is clearly fixed - without undue delay.
(Sindhu Bhattacharya is a senior journalist. She has been associated with leading media platforms and has written extensively on aviation policy and airlines.)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
