Aviation safety campaigners in the United States say they have evidence a plane that crashed in India last year had previously suffered a series of technical failures, including an in-flight fire.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed on 12 June, shortly after taking off from Ahmedabad en route to London, killing 260 people.
The Foundation for Aviation Safety, a US campaign group, has sent a presentation to the US Senate outlining its findings, which it says are based on documents that have come into its possession.
The official investigation into the accident is ongoing. However, an interim report published in July sparked widespread speculation and controversy. Boeing declined to comment.
The aircraft involved in the accident, registered as VT-ANB, was one of the earliest 787s to be built. It first flew in late 2013, and entered service with Air India in early 2014.
The Foundation for Aviation Safety says documents show that the plane experienced system failures from its very first day in service for Air India. It alleges these were caused by a wide and confusing variety of engineering, manufacturing, quality, and maintenance problems.
The failures included electronics and software faults, circuit breakers tripping repeatedly, damage to wiring, short circuits, loss of electrical current, and overheating of power system components.
In January 2022, there was a fire in the P100 power distribution panel. The pilots started receiving fault messages during a descent into Frankfurt Airport - and the damage was discovered afterwards. It was so severe, the FAS says, that the entire panel had to be replaced.
The 787 relies more heavily on electrical systems than previous generations of passenger aircraft. However, this led to problems early in the aircraft's existence, including a major battery fire on a plane owned by Japan Airlines in 2013, which led to a temporary grounding of the 787 fleet.
The Foundation's report has been sent to the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which last year held hearings into Boeing's broken safety culture. The official investigation into the Ahmedabad crash is being carried out by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) with American officials participating as the aircraft and its engines were designed and built in the US.
Concerns about safety have been heightened following an interim report that suggested the plane's fuel control switches were moved from run to cut-off shortly after takeoff, leading to a loss of thrust. This has prompted debates over whether the issue was human error or a technical malfunction.
Ed Pierson, a former senior manager at Boeing's Renton factory and head of the Foundation for Aviation Safety, has criticized the preliminary report into the crash as woefully inadequate. He has called for a thorough examination of the safety issues surrounding the 787, not just the aircraft involved in the Ahmedabad incident, alleging systemic failures in Boeing's safety practices.
Boeing has maintained its stance that the 787 is a safe aircraft and has operated for nearly a decade and a half without a single fatality before the crash.
