Top Boeing exec Pope visits Air India HQ to discuss plane crash, sources say

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By Aditi Shah and Aditya Kalra

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -The head of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Stephanie Pope, met the chairman of Air India on Monday in India, two sources said, as the companies seek to find the cause of last week’s fatal crash involving a Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Pope met Air India Chairman N. Chandrasekaran at the airline’s headquarters in Gurugram, near New Delhi airport, and was accompanied by Boeing’s India President Salil Gupte, one of the sources said.

Details of the discussions were not immediately clear. They came four days after a London-bound Air India plane crashed in the Indian city of Ahmedabad seconds after take-off, killing all but one of the 242 people on board.

Pope oversees design, production and delivery of advanced jetliners to Boeing customers around the world, according to the U.S. plane maker’s website.

The Dreamliner was fitted with GE engines and GE Aerospace’s CEO for Commercial Engines and Services, Russell Stokes, and its South Asia chief, Vikram Rai, also met Chandrasekaran on Monday, one of the sources said.

Boeing, in a statement to Reuters, declined to comment on Pope’s visit and meeting with Air India but said it is “focused on supporting the investigation” and its customer.

GE and Air India did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. The sources declined to be named as the meetings were private.

The crash, the world’s worst aviation disaster in a decade, is the latest test for Boeing’s new leadership that has been working to reform the company’s public image and regain trust following a series of safety and production crises.

Air India, which has 33 Dreamliners in its fleet, is one of Boeing’s biggest customers with more than 200 new planes on order including 20 787s.

(Reporting by Aditi Shah and Aditya Kalra; Editing by Susan Fenton)