NPR | Thursday, June 12, 2025 
What led the Boeing 787 Dreamliner to crash in India with 242 people aboard?

An Air India flight ended in catastrophe Thursday, as Flight 171 crashed into a building in a residential area shortly after taking off in Ahmedabad, India. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner had been bound for London’s Gatwick Airport. The aircraft had 242 people on board — only one person, a passenger, survived, Air India said. Casualties are feared to include people who were inside or near the building the plane struck: a hostel in the B.J. Medical College in Ahmedabad. The tragedy is the first recorded incident of a complete loss of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, an airliner that had its initial flight in 2009. Surveillance and witness videos from the scene suggest the plane may have been in the air for only around 30 seconds struggling to gain altitude before it descended and crashed. “It just appears to me that the airplane is unable to climb,” former National Transportation Safety Board investigator Jeff Guzzetti told NPR, reacting to videos that apparently captured the moments before the crash. “It was able to take off from the runway and get up to 500 feet, but it just wasn’t able to climb after that.” Information is still emerging about the crash. Here are some key questions: – Who was on the plane? – Flight 171 took off with 242 passengers and crew on board, according to Air India. The airline provided a breakdown of the passengers who were on the Boeing 787-8: 169 Indian nationals; 53 British nationals; 7 Portuguese nationals; 1 Canadian national…Read more