Plane crashed in India, more international flights of Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner cancelled

From our correspondent

NEW DELHI - According to the Indian press, Air India on Tuesday cancelled six international flights - all operated with the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, the same model of aircraft at the centre of last Thursday's disaster in Ahmedabad in which 241 passengers and crew members lost their lives and at least 29 people were grounded. Among the causes of the cancellations could also be an increase in controls ordered by the Indian authorities, as well as problems related to the complex international situation such as the conflict between Israel and Iran, the war in Ukraine and the closure of Pakistani airspace to Indian companies

The cancelled flights are: AI 915 (Delhi-Dubai), AI 153 (Delhi-Vienna), AI 143 (Delhi-Paris), AI 159 (Ahmedabad-London), AI 133 (Bangalore-London), AI 170 (London-Amritsar). Furthermore, yesterday a technical problem also affected a Dreamliner in service as AI 315 and bound from Hong Kong to Delhi: after an hour's flight it returned to the departure airport 'due to a technical problem'. On the same day, an Air India flight bound from San Francisco to Mumbai also suffered a technical failure during a scheduled stopover in Calcutta, forcing the company to disembark all passengers.

Two Dreamliners operated by Lufthansa and British Airways - bound respectively from Frankfurt to Hyderabad and from London to Chennai - were also forced to return to their airports of origin. The former because of a bomb threat and the latter because of a technical problem.

Air India explained that flight AI 143 bound from Delhi to Perigi encountered a problem during pre-flight checks and that the timing to resolve it would violate the night operations restrictions at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport.