Dreamliner lessons: Was homework done before AI-171's fatal flight?
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New Delhi: What led to the crash of the ill-fated AI-171 Ahmedabad-London flight is, for now, a very turbulent question, especially as it marks the first accident with fatalities involving the Boeing 787-800 Dreamliner. And while that probe gets underway, attention will fall on B787 incidents in India that did not become accidents but reveal a pattern of errors - from human to mechanical.Why go far? The same AI-171 Ahmedabad-London flight had to be escorted eight years ago by a fighter aircraft over Hungarian airspace after failing to respond to ATC calls for over 40 minutes. The reason: the speaker on the headset had been "inadvertently" switched off.This was on March 10, 2017. The commander of the flight woke from a 'controlled' rest to find a Hungarian fighter jet flanking the right side of his B787-800. He rushed to his headset, made contact, and was told that Budapest ATC had been trying to communicate with AI-171 for some time. With no response, the air force had been pressed into action.The commander soon realised the speaker on the headphones had been switched off during his permissible controlled rest, while the co-pilot was in charge. He apologised and re-established contact. However, a fighter remained alongside the aircraft until it began its descent into London.The DGCA's incident inquiry report concluded: "The inadvertent operation of speaker volume control switches, probably by the First Officer, has resulted in the loss of communication between the aircraft and the ATC."Barely two years ago, in an incident echoing the Ahmedabad sequence, AI-131 took off from Mumbai to London on August 4, 2023. Just nine minutes into the climb, one of the engines on the same Boeing 787-800 failed."While climbing past 17,000 feet, the crew heard a loud thud, which was followed by EICAS caution ENGINE SURGE L," recorded the DGCA in its inquiry report.The commander issued a 'PAN PAN' call (urgent situation), turned back, chose not to offload fuel, and executed an overweight heavy landing on a single engine. There were no injuries, but a detailed investigation revealed that a high-pressure compressor (HPC) stage 10 blade had been "liberated due to improper installation of locking lugs," leading to the "uncommanded shutdown" of an engine.If these two incidents point to pilot and engineering lapses, two others involving smoke in the cabin and emergency landings were caused by technical issues with the Cabin Air Compressor (CAC).On July 16, 2018, AI-380 from Delhi to Singapore, operating on a B787, made a MAYDAY call and diverted to Kolkata for an emergency landing following smoke in the cabin. A similar incident had occurred three years earlier, on October 10, 2015, when another B787 made a safe emergency landing in Kolkata.According to the DGCA inquiry, Boeing confirmed that CAC surge had become an "industry issue" and Air India would implement changes as advised by the manufacturer.Perhaps the most embarrassing incident involving AI's B787 fleet was when one of its aircraft struck a parking building while taxiing into its bay at Stockholm airport. Swedish authorities decided not to investigate after assessing the damage, but the DGCA, as per regulations, did.So, while this was the first fatal crash involving a B787-800, the truth is that several incidents - not accidents - have occurred over the past decade and have been duly investigated. Each pointed to different issues - human error, a combination of human misjudgement and mechanical faults, as well as purely technical problems.As the Ahmedabad probe unfolds, a key question remains: were the lessons learnt?
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