The 737-800 Caribbean Air­lines air­craft which was in­volved in the run­way mishap at the Ched­di Ja­gan In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port on Sat­ur­day morn­ing is a Boe­ing 737 Next Gen­er­a­tion air­craft, com­mon­ly ab­bre­vi­at­ed as Boe­ing 737NG. It is a short- to medi­um-range nar­row-body jet air­lin­er which has been pro­duced since 1996 by Boe­ing Com­mer­cial Air­planes. The 737-800 filled the gap left by the de­ci­sion to dis­con­tin­ue the Mc­Don­nell Dou­glas MD-80 and MD-90, af­ter Boe­ing's merg­er with Mc­Don­nell Dou­glas.

It was launched in 1994 and en­tered ser­vice in 1998.

The air­craft seats 162 pas­sen­gers in a two-class lay­out, or 189 in one class. It is among the mod­els re­plac­ing the Mc­Don­nell Dou­glas MD-80 and MD-90 se­ries air­craft in air­line ser­vice. Ryanair, an Irish low-cost air­line, is one of the largest op­er­a­tors of the Boe­ing 737-800, with a fleet of 300 air­craft serv­ing more than 1,000 routes across Eu­rope and North Africa. On Au­gust 21, 2006, Sky News al­leged that Boe­ing's Next Gen­er­a­tion 737s built from 1994 to 2002 con­tained de­fec­tive parts.

The re­port stat­ed that var­i­ous parts of the air­frame were found to be de­fec­tive by Boe­ing em­ploy­ees but the air­craft man­u­fac­tur­er re­fused to take ac­tion. Boe­ing said the al­le­ga­tions were "with­out mer­it." How­ev­er, a one-year in­ves­ti­ga­tion by Al Jazeera last year ques­tioned the safe­ty of some struc­tur­al parts in 737s. Boe­ing is con­sid­er­ing putting new en­gines on the 737 to make the mod­el stay com­pet­i­tive. The man­u­fac­tur­er is plan­ning to in­crease month­ly 737 pro­duc­tion from 31.5 to 35 per month in 2012, and 38 per month in 2013.