Air India Crash Is First for Boeing's Dreamliner

The passenger jet that went down in India on Thursday is a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, and the crash is a first for this type of Boeing jet, reports the BBC. Boeing delivered its first Dreamliner model 14 years ago and boasted earlier this year of carrying 1 billion passengers over 5 million flights. Prior to Thursday, the model had never experienced a total hull loss or fatal crash, per the Federal. A total of 242 people were aboard the jet out of India that was bound for London, and no word on survivors immediately surfaced.

Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, still less than a year on the job, has been trying to help the company overcome a host of serious problems, including fatal crashes, with its 737 line of jets. Boeing delivered the particular 787 in Thursday's crash to Air India in 2014, per CNBC. Dreamliners are made partly with carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer, which makes them lighter and more fuel-efficient than comparable jets, and helps explain why they are one of the world's top-selling wide-body planes. (More Boeing 787 Dreamliner stories.)