Now, travelers have questions about whether or not it is safe to fly on Boeing's 787 Dreamliner plane. (According to aviation analytics firm Cirium, there are 1,148 Boeing 787s in service worldwide.)

The crash of an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner seconds after takeoff from Ahmedabad city, killing all but one of the 242 people on board, is the world's worst aviation disaster in a decade.

It’s also the latest disaster to hit the beleaguered American aerospace giant — which has been dogged by a door that blew off a 737 jet, a leaky spacecraft that stranded astronauts on the International Space Station for months, as well as politically damaging delays in outfitting the new Air Force One jets.