India’s aviation regulator has ordered all Boeing 787s being operated by local carriers to be inspected after an Air India crash killed 270 people this week, the aviation minister said on Saturday, adding the authorities were investigating all possible causes.
The aviation regulator on Friday ordered Air India to conduct additional maintenance checks on its Boeing 787-8/9 aircraft equipped with GEnx engines, including assessments of certain take-off parameters, electronic engine control tests and engine fuel-related checks.
“We have also given the order to do the extended surveillance of the 787 planes. There are 34 in our Indian fleet,” aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu told a media briefing in New Delhi.
“Eight have already been inspected and with immediate urgency, all of them are going to be done.”
This is the second time I’m reading this kind of logic (about service time).
10 years is nothing for an aircraft. This is almost the best span during its lifetime – when you have the experience with both the model and the particular unit.
To quote Airbus:
30-plus. Not less than 10.
It could be bad maintenance, for sure. But it could also be just Boeing again.
10+ years is firmly in the territory of where the condition of an airplane depends on the quality of airline maintenance. Now, it could of course still be a catastrophic problem (or a sequence of problems) that has been there since Boeing built the plane and didn’t make itself known in the millions of flights conducted on the 1200+ 787s flying for almost 15 years now… we’ll have to wait and see. CVR and FDR should give clear answers.
The whole thing is just really weird. Something like that should not be possible, even on a Boeing plane.