Al Root

Boeing stock fell early Wednesday as investors anxiously wait for updates about what happened to the Air India 787 jet that crashed on June 12, less than a minute after taking off from the Ahmedabad airport.

The crash cast a shadow over the biennial Paris Air Show, which wrapped up on Sunday.

Shares of the commercial-jet maker fell 0.5% early Wednesday to $200.03, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 0.2% and down 0.1%, respectively. The early move left Boeing shares up less than 1% over the past five days.

Shares fell 0.2% on Tuesday. One factor that may have influenced shares was a National Transportation Safety Board meeting to discuss the January 2024 emergency door plug blowout on a 737 MAX 9 jet operated by Alaska Airlines.

The door plug incident was traced back to a manufacturing error, leading to slower production and more regulatory oversight at Boeing. The NTSB meeting detailed dozens of findings and many process failures by Boeing.

"We at Boeing regret this accident and continue to work on strengthening safety and quality across our operations," said the company in an emailed statement. "We will review the final report and recommendations as we continue to implement improvements."

Coming into Wednesday trading, Boeing stock was down almost $50 since the door plug incident, wiping out some $40 billion of market value.

Coming into Wednesday trading, shares were also down about 6% since the Air India crash. Shares of engine maker GE Aerospace were up about 1%. The Air India 787 was powered by GEnx engines.

The plane was a 12-year-old Boeing 787 that had accumulated 41,700 flight hours over 7,800 flights. The jet underwent a "C check," which is a comprehensive inspection done every 20 to 24 months, in 2023, according to reports. The engines were overhauled earlier in 2025 in accordance with typical operating procedures.

Air India still operates more than 30 787 jets. All have been inspected since the crash without any material findings. Aviation authorities from around the world haven't found a reason to ground the aircraft.

Both of the jet's black boxes -- the flight-data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder -- have been recovered. They might be sent to the U.S. for analysis, and should yield more insight in the coming days.

Initial investigations appear to be focused on power loss by both engines, which was first suspected after the RAT, or ram air turbine, deployed. The RAT is an emergency system designed to provide electrical and hydraulic power in the event of a catastrophic power loss.

Losing one engine is incredibly rare. Losing both at the same time is rarer by an order of magnitude. As a proxy, in its 2024 safety report, the International Civil Aviation Organization counted only two accidents in which planes lost control while in flight. (That can happen for other reasons besides engine failure.) That covers more than 35 million flights.

Investors have seen on social media theories linked to heat, fuel, and bird strikes, among other things. None has come from aviation officials. Those updates are likely weeks away.

The investigation continued as the Paris Air Show wrapped up over the weekend. Jefferies analyst Sheila Kahyaoglu called it a "no show air show. " Boeing only had one order announcement with ANA completing a deal. Order announcements were likely deferred due to the crash. Airbus took in 406 orders, but even that doesn't do much in light of its backlog of more than 8,000 planes.

The industry has been supply-constrained for years, leaving older planes flying longer. That made supply chain and aftermarket parts the focus of the show.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com

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June 25, 2025 09:54 ET (13:54 GMT)

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