Mumbai Mirror
My first thought was : Parts falling off a new plane? Did they outsurce production to Ford?A fuselage panel of a Dreamliner flying from Delhi to Bangalore on Saturday fell off mid-air, leaving a gaping hole in the aircraft's belly and putting the lives of 148 passengers and crew on board at grave risk.
The Air India flight AI 803, however, landed safely in Bangalore at 9.25 am. Since the missing panel did not trigger an alarm in the cockpit, the pilots remained unaware of the mishap till the time the ground staff, preparing the aircraft for its return flight, detected the 8 feet x 4 feet breach.
The aircraft was grounded and a massive hunt for the panel was launched at the Bangalore airport, where it was assumed it could have fallen because of a hard landing. When the airport staff found nothing on the runway, the Delhi airport too was asked to look for the missing body part. They drew a blank too.
Confirming the incident, an Air-India spokesman on Monday told Mumbai Mirror, "There was a technical snag. A panel did fall off, but it was replaced and (the aircraft was) certified to operate."
Aviation expert Vipul Saxena, however, expressed concern that the falling of such a big panel did not trigger an alert in the aircraft's cockpit. "It's strange that the pilots did not notice anything. A hole in fuselage must have had some impact on the aircraft's stability," he said.
The aircraft was being piloted by Captain Gopal Nambiar.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has launched an inquiry into the incident.
As there were no spares available at the Bangalore airport, a replacement panel of another Dreamliner located in Delhi was removed and flown in so that the AI 803, which remained on ground for 10 hours, could fly back. The 160 passengers, who were to fly on the return leg to Delhi, had to wait till 6 pm.
ADGCA official, who did not wish to be identified, said the aircraft was cleared to fly again as there was no internal damage.
"We examined the aircraft and found that the panel fastened by rivets had come off. As the internal examination did not show any damage, it was cleared to fly back," he said.
Air-India operates the Dreamliners on domestic circuits between Delhi-Chennai, Delhi-Bangalore and Delhi-Kolkata routes besides international operations to London, Frankfurt, Paris and Australia.
In November 2010, a Dreamliner made an emergency landing after smoke and flames were detected in the main cabin during a test flight over Texas.
In January 2013, two major Japanese airlines ANA and JAL announced that they were voluntarily grounding or suspending flights for their fleets of Dreamliners after multiple incidents involving different 787s. These two carriers operate 24 of the 50 Dreamliners delivered to date.
In July 2013 a fire broke out on an empty Ethiopian Airlines Dreamliner that was parked at Heathrow, forcing the closure of Britain's busiest airport. Just a few weeks later, Qatar Airways grounded its fleet of Dreamliners due to problems with an electrical panel.
But honestly, Boeing is not doing themselves a favor with their quality management. Seems people have dodged a bullet here - planes have crashed for less.
And how on earth did the pilots not notice anything - such a huge hole must have affected the aerodynamics.
