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Boeing Dreamliner Turns Back After Pilot Finds Alarming Issue Mid-Flight

BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY

The Air India jet was the same type of aircraft involved in the crash that led to 270 deaths.

Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft as seen on final approach flying for landing at London Heathrow International Airport LHR EGLL in England, United Kingdom on March 19, 2020. The modern and advanced B787-8 airplane has the registration VT-ANM and is powered by 2x GEnx-1B jet engines. AirIndia AI AIC is the flag carrier of India with headquarters at New Delhi and main hub at Delhi Indira Gandhi DEL airport, the airline is government-owned and member of Star Alliance aviation team. On August 7, 2020 an Air India subsidiary, Air India Express flight no AXB1344 had an accident skidded the runway during landing at Karipur Airport, Kozhikode Airport CCJ in India with at least 191 people on board and 2 fatalities. (Photo by Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
NurPhoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images

An Air India flight was forced to turn around and return to Hong Kong after an unspecified technical issue was discovered with the aircraft. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner—the same craft involved in last week’s devastating crash in Ahmedabad which killed 270 people—was an hour into a flight to New Delhi when the pilot suspected a problem and turned around. The exact nature of the technical issue is not currently known but the craft is currently undergoing a series of maintenance checks to determine the problem, Reuters reports. An Air India spokesperson told Sky News: “We are providing all necessary on-ground assistance to the passengers to minimise the inconvenience caused by this unforeseen disruption.” All but one of the passengers and crew aboard the 787-8 Air India flight bound for London Gatwick were killed when the plane crashed into a residential area just moments after takeoff last Thursday. Preliminary investigations suggest an “extremely rare” double engine failure could have been responsible for the crash, one of the worst aviation accidents in decades.

Read it at Reuters

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