India ramps up inspections of Boeing 787s after fatal crash

Mihir Mishra, Leen Al-Rashdan, Bloomberg News on Jun 14, 2025

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India aviation regulators said urgent safety checks would be carried out for dozens of Boeing Co. 787 jets in the wake of the Air India crash that killed all but one of the 242 people on board.

Air India so far has completed one-time inspections under the direction of India’s aviation regulator across nine of the Dreamliner jets in its fleet, with 24 aircraft left to inspect, the carrier said in a post on X on Saturday.

The checks are being done as the 787 jets return to India, before being cleared for their next flights. “Some of these checks could lead to higher turnaround time and potential delays on certain long-haul routes,” Air India said.

The nation’s aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, said Friday it had ordered maintenance checks on all of Air India’s Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 Dreamliners equipped with General Electric Co.’s GEnx engines.

The inspections, to be carried out over two weeks, cover fuel, cabin-air, engine-control and hydraulics systems after the Air India plane appeared to lose thrust as it took off.

Investigators have been surveying the wreckage of Air India flight AI171 to determine what caused the aircraft to fail shortly after takeoff on Thursday and plunge into a densely populated residential area in the western city of Ahmedabad. The incident ranks as the worst disaster in civil aviation in more than a decade.

The accident site was cordoned off Saturday after rescue operations ended and the probe intensified. Experts from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau and Boeing, as well as several civil aviation authorities, have surveyed the location. One of the plane’s two black boxes — which hold key flight and voice data from the flight — has been found.

The last communication from flight captain Sumeet Sabharwal to air traffic control was “Mayday … no thrust, losing power, unable to lift,” the U.K.’s Telegraph newspaper reported.

Thursday’s crash is the first-ever complete loss of a 787, a plane Boeing introduced more than a decade ago with advanced lightweight composite materials that improve fuel efficiency.

Airlines around the world are waiting to see if regulators would demand broader inspections of 787 jets, or even a grounding, though so far they haven’t taken that step.

“The remaining aircraft are being checked on an urgent basis,” India said in an update on its website Saturday. “The DGCA has also intensified ongoing surveillance of maintenance protocols and airworthiness procedures for all wide-body aircraft operating in India.”

Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu told reporters in New Delhi that a special multidepartment team has been set up to investigate all the nontechnical aspects around the crash and will issue a report in three months.

Eight of the 34 Boeing 787 planes in the country have been inspected, he said. Air India said it was working to complete checks for its remaining aircraft. It was unclear if Naidu was including in the tally an additional jet, leased by IndiGo. A representative for IndiGo didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Investigative teams from the U.K. and U.S. arrived Friday in Ahmedabad to assist with the crash probe. Bodies were being released in batches on Friday from the hospital’s post-mortem room.

Students of the B.J. Medical College were having lunch in their hostel dining hall on Thursday when the jet loaded with fuel smashed into the building and exploded. Medical students were overcome with emotion as they received the bodies of friends who had lost their lives.

More than 200 trained caregivers are in place to provide counseling and other services to family members of victims, Air India’s Chief Executive Officer Campbell Wilson said in a video posted on X on Saturday. Members of Air India’s management were also on site, he added.

Air India will be paying the equivalent of roughly 21,000 British pounds ($28,500) to each of the families of the deceased and to the survivor, the carrier said. This is in addition to the some 85,000 British pounds announced by Air India owner Tata Sons.