A security personnel stands guard as Air India's Dreamliner Boeing 787 taxies upon its arrival at the airport in New Delhi.Reuters
A Boeing 787 Dreamliner operated by Air India was grounded in Sydney on 10 July due to a problem with the aircraft's landing gear.
This has been for the third time the Indian state-owned carrier is experiencing troubles with the Boeing model, the entire fleet of which was grounded earlier in 2013 owing to a battery glitch.
In the latest development, Air India's (AI) first Dreamliner, VT-ANH, which was supposed to fly from Sydney to Melbourne and then return to Delhi, could not take off after engineers detected a snag in the landing gear that made retracting wheels in air after take-off impossible.
The flight had earlier landed safely at Sydney after taking off from Delhi.
"AI is sending engineers and replacement equipment on Friday but VT-ANH is grounded for at least two to three days," Times News Network reported citing a source.
As of now, two of Air India's Boeing 787s are grounded abroad — Hong Kong and Sydney. The company owns 8 Dreamliners and leases 7.
On 7 July, Air India had to ground another Dreamliner in Hong Kong, after the aircraft was found to have an oil leak. The aircraft that was operating on Delhi-Hong Kong-Seoul-Hong Kong-Delhi route is still stuck there.
On 5 July, another Boeing 787 had to cancel a flight to Kolkata from Delhi due to a problem with its breaking assembly.
Since its first flight in December 2009, Boeing's flagship Dreamliner aircraft, largely made of carbon-fibre composite, suffered from a number of problems, damaging the aircraft maker's reputation across the globe.
The entire global fleet of 50 Dreamliners was grounded in January 2013 following unrelated accidents on two planes operated by Japanese carriers ANA and JAL.
On 7 January, 2013, a JAL plane caught fire at Boston's Logan International Airport. And nine days later, an ANA aircraft made an emergency landing in Japan, citing battery problems.
Boeing modified the batteries and flights resumed in April. However, further problems surfaced throughout last year, putting passenger safety at risk.
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