Ground all Air India B-787s before tragedy strikes: Pilots’ Federation urges Ministry

Sounding an unmistakable alarm on passenger safety, the Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP) has written a searing letter to the Union Minister of Civil Aviation demanding the “grounding of all B-787 aircraft in the light of continuous electrical problems and a special DGCA audit of Air India aircraft for maintenance.”

The letter, which follows a series of mid-air technical failures, warns that the country’s Dreamliners are facing “repetitive and worsening electrical malfunctions” that could jeopardise lives if left unchecked.

Referring to the recent diversion of Air India flight AI-154 from Vienna to Delhi, the FIP president CS Randhawa revealed that the aircraft suffered “major technical issues where the autopilot system suddenly failed, triggering a series of malfunctions across critical systems.”

As per FIP, the failure extended to the Instrument Landing System (ILS), Flight Directors (FDs) and Flight Control System, leaving the pilots with no choice but to manually control the aircraft through the night sky before diverting to Dubai.

“The pilots could not engage the autopilots due to electrical malfunctions; thus, they were constrained to fly manually at night and divert to Dubai,” the letter said, commending the crew for their extraordinary skill in landing the aircraft safely despite “limited automation and degraded systems.”

Just five days before that, another Air India Dreamliner, flight AI-117, suffered a serious malfunction while approaching Birmingham, when the Ram Air Turbine (RAT) deployed mid-air due to an electrical snag.

The pilots’ association described these incidents as part of a “deepening pattern” of neglect, drawing attention to the earlier crash of AI-171, which, it said, should have served as a wake-up call.

“The safety of air travel is being compromised by not investigating the causes of failures on B-787s in the country,” the FIP warned, adding that “failures are increasing day by day, seriously affecting air safety.”

The letter, marked urgent, calls upon the Minister to “ground all the B-787s of Air India” and order a “special audit by DGCA’s senior officers from Air Safety and Airworthiness.” It alleges that the frequency of such malfunctions has grown “since the time newly hired Air India engineers began maintaining the aircraft”, noting that the problems were “much less when AIESL was looking after maintenance.”

“Two incidents of electrical malfunctions in a short span of time are indicators of poor serviceability by Air India,” the letter said, urging that “the DGCA must check the MEL releases and repetitive snags on these aircraft before it is too late.”

The FIP has asked the Ministry to launch a thorough investigation into both recent incidents, AI-117 and AI-154 and to immediately ground the Dreamliner fleet until every aircraft is cleared through rigorous electrical and systems inspection.