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March 17, 2014
AI's Dreamliner grounded in Paris: Wings' spoilers go dead, narrow escape for passengers
New Delhi: One more grounding of the Dreamliner. The Boeing was publicised by the beneficiaries of the deal as money-saver and a "dream come true" for the Indian white elephant called Air India. Two hundred and thirty-six lives have been saved by the timely detection of a serious glitch in a vital function of the plane by the alert staff of the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris on Saturday. The flight AI-142 was taking off for Delhi on Saturday when the French engineers found its spoilers were malfunctioning.

(In aeronautics, spoilers are parts of the wing of a plane that are raised upwards during descent and landing to do the function of a wall creating controlled resistance to the air flow or, in other words, to the forward thrust of the plane, so that the speed of the aircraft is slowed down and subsequently the height also drops. That is, they act like controll roll as well as speed-breakers.)

Air India's Boeing 787 Dreamliners have escaped disasters dozens of times in the recent past. The latest casualties include a Delhi-Frankfurt, Delhi-Birmingham and Sydney-New Delhi flights.

A total of 27 Dreamliners have been ordered!

The flight AI-301 carrying 231 people from Sydney (Sydney via Melbourne to Delhi) had to be diverted to Kuala Lumpur last month as all its three auto pilot software systems (flight management computers - FMC) failed sumultaneously mid-air. The technical snag in the world's most modern aircraft was fixed there and it landed in Delhi two days later.

Faults and delays cost the airlines heavily. Besides, passengers have started protesting against their frequent harrowing experience. The 'royal' airliner has 13 of them in its fleet and more are on the way! A total of 27 Dreamliners has been ordered.

Earlier, the windshield of a Dreamliner cracked in Delhi. In another mishap, an exterior fuselage panel fell off as a 787 landed in Bangalore.

Japanese airlines also have faced glitches relating to battery with their two Dreamliners last year.

The Chicago-based manufacturer claims the wide-bodied Dreamliner is the world's most modern aircraft. It was the first to use composite materials to reduce weight and save on fuel. Dreamliner consumes 15% less fuel than today's similarly sized airplanes, AI claims. However, the experience has been that the heavy-body aircraft guzzles more fuel than other planes.


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