The Dreamliner crash echoes the catastrophic 737 MAX crashes of 2018 and 2019, which killed 346 people and exposed profound flaws in Boeing's design and certification processes. Ed Pierson, a 737 MAX whistleblower and former Boeing engineer, starkly warned senators last year that:

The deadly crash of Air India Flight 171 last week has centered renewed scrutiny on the airplane's manufacturer, Boeing, and this time it's the 787 Dreamliner in investigators' sights.

While authorities are still investigating what led to the fatal crash, hundreds of relatives of the victims have been providing DNA samples to identify the remains of their loved ones.