AI’s Dreamliner woes continue, braking system culprit this time

National carrier Air India's woes with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner's operations continued after a flight with 184 passengers and crew onboard, operating on the London-Delhi route, made a priority landing at the Indira Gandhi International Airport early on Tuesday.

"The flight AI 116 sought priority landing yesterday around 2.30 AM after pilots found some warning lights blipping as they were approaching New Delhi," Air India officials said. The lights were indicating a problem with the braking system which prompted the pilots to seek a "priority" landing. The aircraft, however, landed safely.

This was the second incident which raised concerns about the safe operations of the Dreamliner aircraft. On Monday, Air India's Dreamliner developed cracks while landing at the Melbourne Airport. The cracked windshield has been replaced by a new one and is being sent back.

The windshield of AI-311 operating on the Delhi-Melbourne-Sydney route with 80 passengers and 12 crew members onboard cracked as the plane landed at Melbourne on Monday.

Air India's Dreamliners have had a string of operating snags of late and recently a body panel fell off the aircraft while approaching Bangalore for landing.

In January, the entire Dreamliner fleet was grounded after the US Federal Aviation Administration found problems with the aircraft's battery systems. Since, then the problem had been fixed by the manufacturer Boeing and returned to airlines across the world.

Last week, Boeing said that the aircraft was safe for passengers but admitted that it was concerned with the recurring problems in its operations.

"We are concerned about the problems with the Dreamliners. It's a machine, we did our best to design it but things happen sometimes," said Dinesh Keskar, senior vice president (sales, Asia-Pacific and India) at Boeing. "But it is a safe airplane, it has never caused issues with the safety of passengers."

Air India has continued with the deliveries of the Dreamliner despite the technical snags.
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