Air India crash puts spotlight on Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner safety

The Air India plane crash on Thursday is putting a renewed spotlight on Boeing, the manufacturer of the 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft that crashed in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad with 242 passengers and crew on board.

Boeing says the 787-8 is the aviation industry's "best-selling passenger widebody of all time," carrying more than 1 billion passengers since it was first delivered to airlines in 2011.

"We are in contact with Air India regarding Flight 171 and stand ready to support them. Our thoughts are with the passengers, crew, first responders and all affected," Boeing said in a statement to CBS News.

Shares of Boeing fell $15.34, or 7.2%, to $198.66 in pre-market trading.

The Air India incident represents the first crash of a 787-8 Dreamliner, although the aircraft has been involved in previous investigations.

A police official told The Associated Press there were no known survivors from the plane, and there were also likely casualties on the ground as the aircraft careened into buildings.

The Federal Aviation Administration last year ordered inspections of the cockpit seats on the Dreamliners after one of the jets went into a dive when the captain's seat lurched forward without warning and disconnected the plane's autopilot system, according to The Associated Press.

Last year, a whistleblower's allegations prompted the FAA to investigate his claims about assembly defects in the company's 787 Dreamliner.

Sam Salehpour, a Boeing quality engineer, said "he observed shortcuts taken by Boeing" during assembly of the Dreamliner, "resulting in drilling debris left in interfaces and deformation of composite material," CBS News reported. He also claimed to have witnessed issues with the 777 assembly process, according to a letter sent by Salehpour's lawyers to the FAA last year.

For now, it is unclear if those reported issues are linked in any way to the Air India crash.

The aircraft involved in the Air India crash was first delivered to the airline in January 2014. It was on its way from the western Indian city of Ahmedabad to London's Gatwick airport when it crashed shortly after its departure.

The plane had logged more than 41,000 hours of flying time, with almost 8,000 takeoffs and landings, according to Cirium, an aviation analytics firm. Air India operates 190 aircraft, with an average age of 8.4 years, Cirium said.

There are more than 1,100 Dreamliners operating across the globe today, with the aircraft having been in operation for an average of 7.5 years, Cirium noted.

The incident comes after a string of safety issues for Boeing, which has faced investigations and lawsuits for two crashes involving its 737 Max jetliners that killed a total of 346 people.

In May, the aircraft manufacturer reached a $1.1 billion deal with the Department of Justice that allows it to avoid prosecution for the crashes, which occurred in 2018 and 2019.

—With reporting by CBS News' Kathryn Krupnik and Kris Van Cleave