Air India grounds multiple Dreamliners after crash

Air India has canceled several international flights operated by Boeing 787 Dreamliners in the wake of last week's plane crash that killed at least 270 people.

Following a directive from India's aviation regulator mandating thorough preflight inspections across Air India's fleet of 33 Dreamliners, at least three other flights have been grounded or delayed over the past two days.

On Tuesday, a San Francisco-Mumbai flight was forced to deboard passengers during a scheduled halt in Kolkata, eastern India, because of a technical snag. That same day, a flight from the western Indian city of Ahmedabad to London's Gatwick Airport was canceled before its scheduled 3 pm takeoff.

Denying speculations of a technical fault, Air India attributed the disruption to "the unavailability of the aircraft, resulting from airspace restrictions and additional precautionary checks, leading to longer-than-usual turnaround of aircraft".

On June 12, a London-bound Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed soon after taking off from Ahmedabad, leaving only one survivor among the 242 passengers and crew on board. The aircraft slammed into a residential area, killing at least 38 people on the ground.

Investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder from the wreckage on Tuesday. The pilots' final words will be examined for clues about the cause of the crash, said a senior official from the Airports Authority of India familiar with the matter.

Meanwhile, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said no major safety concerns had been found in its recent surveillance of Air India's Dreamliner fleet following the crash.

To assess the "operational robustness" of the carrier and ensure compliance with safety and passenger service regulations, it held a high-level meeting on Tuesday with top executives from Air India and its subsidiary, Air India Express.

At the meeting, the regulator advised Air India to "strictly adhere to regulations"; enhance coordination among its engineering, operations and ground handling units; and ensure adequate spares are available to mitigate passenger delays resulting from such issues.

Following in-depth inspections of 24 Dreamliners, it expressed concerns about delays linked to spare part shortages and weak internal coordination among key departments.

India's Ministry of Civil Aviation said the surveillance did not reveal any "major safety concerns".

"The aircraft and associated maintenance systems were found to be compliant with existing safety standards," the ministry said.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation also suggested implementing a more systematic and real-time defect reporting mechanism to ensure that operational and safety-critical departments receive timely updates.

Also on Tuesday, Boeing's commercial chief, Stephanie Pope, met Air India Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran, accompanied by Boeing India President Salil Gupte. Details of their meeting, held at the airline's headquarters in Gurugram, near New Delhi airport, were not disclosed.

The writer is a freelance journalist for China Daily.