Boeing shares fall 8% after Air India plane crashes

Shares of planemaker Boeing fell 8% in premarket U.S. trading on Thursday after an Air India aircraft with 242 people crashed minutes after taking off from India's western city of Ahmedabad.

Aviation tracking site Flightradar24 said the plane was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, one of the most modern passenger aircraft in service.

The plane was headed to Gatwick Airport in the UK, Air India said, while police officers said it crashed in a civilian area near the airport, without specifying whether there were any fatalities.

It was not immediately clear what caused the crash. Boeing said in a statement it was aware of initial reports and was working to gather more information.

The news comes as the planemaker tries to rebuild trust related to safety in its jets and ramp up production under new Chief Executive Officer Kelly Orthberg.

Boeing's shares were down about 8% at $196.52 in premarket trading.

"It's a knee jerk reaction (to the incident) and there's revised fears of the problems that plagued Boeing aircraft and Boeing itself in recent years," said Chris Beauchamp, analyst at IG Group.

(Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan and Purvi Agarwal in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)