Another Dreamliner problem for Air India: Landing gear won't retract, flight grounded in Sydney

NEW DELHI: An Air India Dreamliner was grounded in Sydney on Thursday evening after the aircraft's landing gear developed a serious snag that made retracting the wheels after take off impossible. This is incidentally the third Dreamliner trouble AI has faced in a week and now two of its Boeing 787s are grounded abroad — Hong Kong and Sydney.

"The aircraft (VT-ANH, AI's first Dreamliner) took off from Delhi and landed safely in Sydney. After a short stop it was supposed to fly on to Melbourne and then return to Delhi. However, at Sydney airport the engineering detected a snag in the landing gear which ruled out retracting wheels in air. AI is sending engineers and replacement equipment on Friday but VT-ANH is grounded for at least two to three days," said a source.

Earlier this week on Monday, an AI Dreamliner had to be grounded in Hong Kong after the aircraft (VT-ANK) sprang an oil leak. The aircraft was operating on Delhi-HK-Seoul-HK-Delhi route and is still stuck there. Last Saturday, Kolkata-bound passengers had to spend hours at Delhi's IGI Airport inside yet another B-787 that had trouble with its braking assembly. After several hours of repairs yielded no result, this aircraft was grounded and harried flyers were sent to Kolkata in another aircraft.