Boeing 787 Dreamliner safety record
The 787 had one fatal accident in fourteen years of service: Air India 171 in June 2025. Here is what is known about it, and the rest of the 787's record.
One fatal accident in fourteen years of service
On 12 June 2025, Air India flight 171, a 787-8, crashed shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad. 241 of the 242 people on board and 19 people on the ground were killed. It is the 787's first fatal accident and the first 787 destroyed. India's investigators found in their preliminary report that both engines' fuel control switches moved from RUN to CUTOFF about three seconds after lift-off; the report made no recommendations to Boeing or to other 787 operators, and the final report is still to come.
Before that, the 787 had flown since 2011 without a fatal accident. In 2013 the fleet was grounded for about three months after battery fires, and the battery system was redesigned before it flew again. Boeing's 2025 accident summary still lists the 787 at zero, because when it was published the accident was categorised as cause unknown or undetermined, which that summary leaves out.
The 787 in numbers
The wings are meant to bend
Look out of a 787 window in bumpy air and the wingtip visibly rises and falls. That's the carbon-fibre wing doing its job: it flexes to absorb a gust instead of passing all of it into the cabin, and it's built to bend far further than anything the weather can ask of it.
The 787 also senses gusts and moves its control surfaces to damp the vertical jolt before you feel all of it. It can't make bumpy air smooth, but it takes the edge off the sharpest bumps.
Nine across in economy
Almost every airline fits nine economy seats across the 787, in three blocks of three with two aisles. The drawing fits those nine seats and two aisles into the cabin's published width, so the seats come out as wide as the arithmetic allows.
Nine across in this cabin is a snug fit. If width matters to you, the aisle seats give you somewhere for an elbow, and the window seat is the one nobody climbs over.
How big it really is
A 787-9 is a large aircraft by any everyday measure, and a mid-sized one by long-haul standards: smaller than a 777 or an A350, far larger than the single-aisle jets you take on short trips.
Tap any other airliner to lay it over the 787 at exactly the same scale.
The 787 in white, the A320 outlined in gold. Same scale, same metre.
Boeing 787 questions
How safe is the 787?
The 787 had one fatal accident in fourteen years of service: Air India 171 in June 2025. Every figure on this page is sourced — the list is at the bottom.
Why is the air on a 787 less dry?
The cabin is pressurised to the equivalent of a lower altitude than most older airliners, and the composite fuselage doesn't corrode the way aluminium does, so the air can be kept a little more humid. Most people notice it as feeling less wrung out after a long flight.
How do the 787's windows dim?
There are no blinds. Each window has a gel layer that darkens when a small voltage is applied, controlled by a button under the window — and on many airlines by the crew for the whole cabin.
Is the 787 good in turbulence?
It's a large, heavy aircraft with long, flexible wings and a system that damps vertical gusts, so it tends to ride bumpy air comfortably. Like every airliner, it's built to take far more than any turbulence it will meet.
Every other airliner
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page is from the manufacturer, the certifying authority or the published accident record.
- Boeing Wingspan, Length, Cabin width, Economy, Seat width
- Boeing Typical seats, Range
- Boeing Cabin altitude
- EASA type certificate data sheet Engines
- Wikipedia Delivered
- airdatanews.com Still being built
- historylink.org First flight
- ana.co.jp In service since
- Boeing Bent upward in the strength test
- AAIB India Accident record
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