Air India Plane Crash Foretold with 6 ‘Tainted' Dreamliners in Fleet

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Air India Dreamliner Crash Raises Fresh Questions Over Boeing’s Longstanding Quality Concerns

By TRH News Desk

NEW DELHI, June 14, 2025 – The tragic crash of Air India Flight 171, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, in Ahmedabad this week reignited long-standing concerns over the safety and quality control of Boeing’s flagship aircraft, particularly those assembled at its South Carolina facility. The crash, which claimed the lives of 279, including 241 passengers on board, is being seen by many as a grim realization of warnings that engineers and whistleblowers have issued for over a decade.

“For 15 years now, engineers and quality control specialists have implored regulators, journalists and airlines to take a closer look at the 787 Dreamliner,” The American Prospect reported, highlighting the serious allegations against Boeing’s Charleston assembly plant.

According to the report, whistleblowers had repeatedly warned that the lightweight composite fibers used to construct the airframe could conceal dangerous structural flaws, and that unqualified, non-union workers were pressured to overlook safety protocols to meet production targets.

Among the most vocal critics was the late John Barnett, a former Boeing quality manager at the Charleston plant, who died in March this year in an apparent suicide. Barnett had consistently warned that Boeing’s “assembly-line sloppiness” could take “ten or twelve years for assembly-line sloppiness to culminate in a plane crash,” as reported by The American Prospect.

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Tragically, the Air India Dreamliner that crashed was delivered in early 2014, roughly within Barnett’s predicted timeframe.

While the exact cause of the crash is still under investigation, preliminary reports indicate that the pilot issued a mayday call citing engine failure moments before the aircraft went down. Footage from the scene shows the plane descending nose-up, suggesting a sudden and catastrophic loss of power.

The American Prospect noted that the 787 Dreamliner has long been “plagued by engine problems partially caused by the abundance of so-called ‘foreign object debris’ Boeing assembly line workers chronically leave on aircraft components in their haste to move to the next task.”

The report further detailed a history of quality issues linked to foreign object debris (FOD). Barnett himself was demoted after insisting on proper cleaning of wire bundles contaminated with metal scraps.

Another quality manager was fired for refusing to sign off on wire bundles that had already started to fray, said the report. It added that “FOD was previously implicated in major engine fires on 787 test flights in 2010 and 2016, incidents Boeing reportedly sought to downplay.”

Of particular concern is the fact that several of the problematic Dreamliners were delivered to Air India. Cynthia Kitchens, another former Boeing quality manager, told The American Prospect that she kept extensive records of defects, and identified six Air India-bound planes among the 11 aircraft that caused her the most alarm.

“No one who works in this factory wants to fly these planes, I mean, that’s just the truth,” Kitchens reportedly told Boeing management after viewing undercover footage filmed by Al Jazeera in the Charleston plant.

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The Al Jazeera investigation, which aired shortly after the FAA temporarily grounded the 787 fleet in 2013 following two battery fires, exposed systemic problems in Boeing’s quality control processes. The report noted that Boeing outsourced much of the plane’s design to suppliers, rushed FAA certifications, and even saw an engineer fired for refusing to dilute repair protocols for the aircraft’s novel composite structures. The documentary’s undercover footage showed multiple Boeing workers stating they would not let their own families fly on the planes they were building.

An investigator who worked on the documentary told The American Prospect that workers were particularly concerned about three planes scheduled for delivery to Air India in early 2014. These aircraft, including the one that crashed this week, were flown from Charleston to Boeing’s Everett, Washington, plant for rework before final delivery.

The ill-fated Air India Dreamliner took its first delivery flight from Everett to Delhi on January 31, 2014.

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