The Air India Flight 171 disaster – read my Saturday post "Dreamliner Crashes Soon After Takeoff" – is said to be a rare blemish to the Boeing 787's safety record.
Boeing have proudly shared that the Dreamliner has been in service since 2011 without a fatal crash. More than 1,100 Dreamliners are in use worldwide, carrying more than 875 million passengers over the last decade.
That may be so but at the same time, the aircraft has seen numerous complaints, concerns, and whistleblower reports over the safety of the widebody jet. And all of them are getting a second look today.
The problems began in early 2013, when fires broke out aboard two Dreamliners owned by Japanese airlines. One plane had just landed at Boston’s Logan Airport, the other was just leaving Japan and had to turn around and land. Both blazes were traced to overheating of the planes’ lithium-ion batteries that power the electrical system. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) quickly stepped in, grounding the worldwide fleet of Dreamliners and temporarily halting the delivery of new ones to airlines that had placed orders for them. In April of 2013, the FAA accepted Boeing’s fixes, which involved better insulation for the batteries and a stainless steel box that would house the batteries and prevent smoke or flames from escaping into the plane if a fire did start. The Dreamliners were cleared to fly and the company was cleared to resume deliveries within weeks of the FAA’s decision.
The next incident occurred in 2019 when, as The New York Times reported in an exposé at the time, John Barnett, a former quality manager who retired in 2017, revealed that he had filed a whistleblower complaint, alleging sloppy work around the wires that connect the planes’ flight control systems, with metal shavings being left behind when bolts were fastened. The risk existed that the shavings would penetrate the wires’ insulation, leading to consequences that Barnett called “catastrophic”.
Barnett also alleged that damaged or substandard parts were being installed in 787s, including a dented hydraulic tube that a senior manager retrieved from a bin of what was supposed to contain scrap. The FAA inspected several 787s that were said to be free of the shavings Barnett reported and found that they were indeed there, reported the Times. The FAA then ordered that Boeing correct the problems before the planes were delivered to customers.
In retirement, Barnett sued Boeing, alleging that the company had denigrated his character and blocked his career advancement during his employment – charges Boeing deny. In March of 2024, he was in North Charleston, South Carolina, the site of the US plant where he was employed, working on his case, when he was found dead in his truck from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
“Boeing may not have pulled the trigger”, Barnett’s family said in a wrongful death lawsuit it filed, “but Boeing’s conduct was the clear cause”.
The company sidestepped the charge: “We are saddened by John Barnett’s death and send our condolences to his family”, Boeing said in a statement.
Last year turned out to be a bad one for Boeing and the Dreamliner for reasons other than Barnett’s death. In January another whistleblower, engineer Sam Salehpour, came forward, reporting that sections of the fuselage of the Dreamliner were improperly connected, with gaps that could cause the plane to break apart during flight. When the sections wouldn’t fit, Salehpour claimed, workers would resort to brute force.
“I literally saw people jumping on the pieces of the airplane to get them to align”, Salehpour said in Capitol Hill testimony. “By jumping up and down, you’re deforming parts so that the holes align temporarily. I called it the Tarzan effect”.
In a statement on its website, Boeing defended the integrity of the Dreamliner: “For the in-service fleet, based on comprehensive analysis no safety issues have been identified related to composite gap management and our engineers are completing exhaustive analysis to determine any long-term inspection and maintenance required, with oversight from the FAA”.
Nonetheless, in May, the FAA acted again, announcing that Boeing had been ordered to reinspect “all 787 airplanes still within the production system and must also create a plan to address the in-service fleet”. That was not the first time the government had taken action on the problem of unacceptable gaps in the Dreamliner’s fuselage. From May 2021 to August 2022, the FAA halted the delivery of new Dreamliners to airline customers while the problem was addressed. Deliveries did resume but, as Salehpour testified, so did the shoddy work on the factory floor.
In March 2024, meantime, a LATAM Airlines flight from Sydney to Auckland suddenly plunged 400 ft. when the pilot’s seat in the 787 lurched forward unexpectedly. The captain recovered but 10 passengers and three members of the cabin crew were injured.
For now, the 1,100 Dreamliners criss-crossing the skies are still flying. That could change pending the results of the Air India investigation. Even a temporary loss of the plane – which is a workhorse for long-haul flights – could be a hardship for both the airlines and the flying public. But as the grieving families of the passengers aboard the Air India flight could attest, loss of life is much worse.
Don't expect the Dreamliner's woes to end any time soon.
On Sunday, a Chennai-bound British Airways Boeing Dreamliner returned to London due to a technical snag. The flight landed safely with crew and passengers disembarking as they normally would, British Airways said in a statement.
Already, on Monday, an Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner plane from Hong Kong to New Delhi returned to Hong Kong as a precautionary measure, after a technical issue was suspected mid-air. The plane involved landed safely and airport operations were not affected.
