Over the last 24 hours, two India-bound Boeing Dreamliners, with full load of passengers, developed technical snags midway into their journeys, forcing them to return to their bases.
A British Airways London (Heathrow) to Chennai Boeing 787-8 had to return to its origin after its captain reported a ‘flap adjustment failure’. The crew decided to dump fuel before attempting to land. Everyone on board the BA35 landed safely.
Just hours later, another Air India 787-8 bound for Delhi, developed an engine issue within 90 minutes of taking off, forcing the pilots to return to the Hong Kong International Airport. The flight was later cancelled for the day.
“AI-315 operating from Hong Kong to Delhi on June 16 returned to Hong Kong shortly after takeoff due to a technical issue. The flight landed safely at Hong Kong and underwent checks. Alternative arrangements were planned to fly the passengers to their destination Delhi at the earliest,” an Air India spokesperson said.
These two latest incidents will raise further questions about safety of the Dreamliners. Both flights are of the same make as the ill-fated Air India AI-171 from Ahmedabad to London which crashed on June 12 killing 241 of its occupants and dozens more on the ground.
Third incident involving a Boeing 787-8 emerged in Zurich where a Delhi-bound flight of Air India reportedly suffered a technical issue. However, the airline confirmed that there was no technical issue with the flight which eventually got rescheduled.
Sources said that because of the mandatory checks ordered by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on all the Boeing 787 family of aircraft run Air India following Thursday’s crash, an Air India flight from Delhi to Zurich could not reach its destination on time on June 15 to be ready for a return flight before the night flight restrictions at the airport kicked in. This led to rescheduling of the return flight to June 16.
The DGCA order, which came into effect from June 15, seeks inspection of fuel parameter monitoring and associated system checks, inspection of cabin air compressor and associated systems, electronic engine control system test, engine fuel driven actuator-operational test and oil system check, serviceability check of hydraulic system and review of takeoff parameters.
The report of the checks is to be submitted to DGCA for review, the order said.