Panel falls off Air India Dreamliner, DGCA probes incident

In a shocking incident, a large panel on a Boeing 787’s fuselage – the main body of the aircraft – flew off when the aircraft was flying from Delhi to Bengaluru last Saturday with 148 people on board.

There seems to be no end to Air India’s Dreamliner woes. In a shocking incident, a large panel on a Boeing 787’s fuselage — the main body of the aircraft — flew off when the aircraft was flying from Delhi to Bengaluru last Saturday with 148 people on board.

HT Image

The plane, however, landed safely in Bengaluru without the pilots realizing what had happened. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation is probing the incident. The 8 by 4 feet hole was noticed by the ground staff when they came to inspect the aircraft for its return journey.

Air India flew spare panel to Bengaluru and fitted it on the Boeing 787, which was later declared fit to fly.

The return flight from Bengaluru was, however, delayed by a good ten hours. The spare panel was taken out of a new Dreamliner aircraft, which was delivered a few days back by Boeing.

An AI official confirmed the incident and said the problem had been fixed.

In January, the US aviation regulator had grounded the Boeing 787s globally as they investigated a battery fire. AI recently had instances of oven overheating in its aircraft that led to the electric systems of the ovens being changed on all its B-787.