Air India Boeing forced to turn back with mid-air ‘technical issue' just days after crash killed at least 270
An Air India flight was forced to make a U-turn due to a technical scare soon after takeoff Monday, just days after another of the airline's Boeing Dreamliners crashed, killing at least 270 people.
Flight AI315 took off from Hong Kong at 12:20 p.m. local time, bound for New Delhi, when the aircraft began an unexpected descent shortly after takeoff.
The seven-year-old Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner had only reached 22,000 feet before it unexpectedly started descending, prompting the pilot to turn the aircraft back to Hong Kong, according to AirNav radar.
The seven-year-old Boeing 787-8 had only reached 22,000 feet before it hit the unexpected descent.
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The flight returned to Hong Kong because of 'a technical issue,' Air India said, without giving further details.
The plane safely landed back in Hong Kong at 1:15 p.m., and is undergoing checks 'as a matter of abundant precaution,' the airline said.
The scare comes just days after Air India Flight 171, also a Boeing Dreamliner, crashed in Ahmedabad just 30 seconds after taking off heading to London Gatwick on Thursday, killing at least 270 people, both on the flight and in a building it crashed into.
The mishap comes just days after Air India Flight 171 crashed in Ahmedabad.
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The 12-year-old plane, which had reached a height of 650 feet in the air, went down within just seconds of the mayday call.
Only one man, Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, survived the horrifying ordeal — one of India's worst aviation disasters in its history.
With Post wires
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