Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for Delhi returns to Hong Kong following in-flight tech issue

Sky News AU

10 hours ago

An Air India flight bound for New Delhi has returned to Hong Kong as a precautionary measure, after the pilot suspected a technical issue mid-air.
Flight AI315 "returned to Hong Kong shortly after take-off due to a technical issue. The flight landed safely... and is undergoing checks as a matter of abundant precaution," Air India said in a statement.
The incident comes just days after another Boeing Air India flight, on route to London, crashed in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad moments after take-off, killing 241 of the 242 people on board.
The Delhi-bound aircraft turned around mid-flight to return to Hong Kong International Airport after requesting local standby at around 1pm and "landed safely at around 1:15 pm", the spokesperson of Airport Authority Hong Kong said.
Airport operations were not affected, a statement on the incident read.
The flight originally took off from Hong Kong about 12:20pm on Monday and landed about an hour later.
It reached an altitude of 22,000 feet, and then started descending, according to flight tracking website AirNav Radar.
The Dreamliner aircraft is now undergoing checks following the incident.
Prior to this flight another Boeing 7887 Dreamliner had to turn around mid-air after suffering 'flap failure' on Sunday.
The British Airways flight bound from Heathrow, London, to Chennai, India, suspected a 'technical issue' less than an hour into its journey.
The BA35 flight circled for an hour over the strait of Dover to dump fuel before safely landing at 1.50pm, according to data on Flightradar24.
Last week's devastating crash brings a new challenge for both Air India, which has been trying to revamp its fleet for years, and Boeing, who are trying to rebuild public trust following a series of safety and production crises.
With Reuters