NEW DELHI: An Air India Boeing 787-788 flight carrying more than 251 passengers from Vienna to Delhi was diverted to Dubai on Thursday due to a technical problem detected when flying mid-air, said sources.
The autopilot system inside the cockpit malfunctioned. The flight landed safely in Dubai and later took off, reaching Delhi two hours later.
The Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP), meanwhile, sent a communication to the Ministry of Civil Aviation attributing the autopilot issue to electrical malfunction.
The auto-pilot system is a critical part of flight operations now as the operations are switched over by the pilot from manual to automatic mode a few hundred feet after take-off.
An Air India spokesperson said in a statement, “AI154 operating from Vienna to Delhi on 9 October was diverted to Dubai due to a technical issue. The aircraft landed safely at Dubai and underwent necessary checks.“
The statement added, “All passengers were kept informed of the delay, provided refreshments and the flight, operated by the same aircraft, departed Dubai at 8.45 am and landed in Delhi at 12.19 pm. Air India categorically denies any assertion that there was an electrical failure in the said aircraft.”
The issue was set right within a short time at Dubai and the flight took-off, an airline source said. “It was not an emergency landing at Dubai,” he added.
Electrical malfunctioning, claims Pilot association
FIP president Captain C S Randhawa, in his letter, attributed the failure to electrical malfunctions.
He claimed, “AI 154 had major technical issues where the autopilot system suddenly failed triggering a series of technical malfunctions. The aircraft experienced failures across critical systems which included Autopilots, Instrument Landing System, Flight Directors (FDs) and Flight Control System degradation with no Auto land capability. The pilots could not engage the autopilots due to electrical malfunctions. Hence, the pilots were constrained to fly manually at night and divert to Dubai.”
Randhawa added, “The FDs were not available with the degraded flight control systems. The aircraft landed safely in Dubai. We compliment the skill of the pilots to fly the aircraft at night safely to Dubai with limited automation/systems.”
A senior pilot told this reporter, “During a flight of a 9 to 10 hour journey like in the present case, it is not possible to fly in manual mode as the pilot needs to descend to an altitude below 28,000 feet. The fuel too will run out. Hence, they must have decided to land at Dubai.”
Control surfaces that make the aircraft go up and down become very sensitive due to the reduced density, he explained. “Moreover, most pilots are not trained to fly manually at that high altitude,” he added.
