New Delhi, March 16 (IANS) An Air India Dreamliner on a Paris-to-Delhi flight had to be grounded shortly before take-off Saturday night after it developed a technical snag, an official here said Sunday.
An airline official said the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, operating flight AI-142, had to be grounded at Charles de Gaulle airport “due to a spoiler problem”. All the 236 passengers, onboard the plane, have been given hotel-accommodation and will be flown to Delhi at the earliest, the official said.
Spoilers are small speed retarding devices fitted on the aircraft wings that operate during take-off and landing.
There have been a spate of incidents involving the Dreamliner since Air India inducted a fleet of 12 of these wide-bodied planes rated as the world’s most advanced commercial aircraft.
Earlier this week, AI chairman Rohit Nandan said at the India Aviation 2014 event in Hyderabad, that Air India have no plans to ground their 256-seat capacity Dreamliners as they were serving the airline well and there were no safety issues.
He said the functioning and performance of Dreamliners was being jointly monitored by a committee and Boeing, and the final report would be placed after 18 months of their use.
The 13th Dreamliner inducted into Air India’s fleet came in from the US on Tuesday.