PNS|New Delhi
Boeing’s 787 Dreamliners took to the skies 14 years ago and the Ahmedabad plane crash on Thursday afternoon is the first incident of the best-selling wide-body aircraft suffering a fatal accident.
The Boeing 787-8 aircraft — VT-ANB — was 11.5 years old and had flown for more than 41,000 hours, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
And the Boeing 787-8 that crashed on Thursday was among the 27 such legacy planes operated by Air India, which is also set to start the retrofit of these aircraft in the coming months.
Air India and IndiGo are the two Indian airlines operating the B787 planes.
Out of the 34 B787 in Air India’s fleet, 27 B787-8 are legacy aircraft. The first of the legacy B787-8 is slated to go for retrofit in July. The remaining seven B 787-9 joined the Air India fleet after the merger of Vistara with it last year.
Globally, the Ahmedabad crash is the first time that hull loss has happened for a Boeing 787 (B787) aircraft, according to an official.
Cirium said the aircraft operated its first flight on December 14, 2013.
The plane was delivered to Air India on January 28, 2014, and it was 11.5 years old.
“The aircraft had 18 business class seats and 238 economy class seats.
