India’s largest association of pilots has asked regulators to ground all Boeing 787s in use in India and inspect them for electrical issues after one of the planes unexpectedly deployed an emergency power system over the weekend.
The device, known as the ram air turbine, drops from the fuselage when a plane loses power or hydraulic pressure, and helps power critical systems like flight controls and navigation instruments. The device deployed during Air India Flight 117, which landed safely in Birmingham, England, on Saturday.
Air India, the country’s largest air carrier, said in a statement that an initial inspection had found that “all electrical and hydraulic parameters” were normal with the flight.
But the pilots’ association, the Federation of Indian Pilots, called for all Boeing 787s in use in India to undergo electrical inspection after Saturday’s flight. Air India operates 34 Boeing 787s, according to a document on its website from April.
“I have never heard of the R.A.T. being deployed automatically without any hydraulic loss, power loss or failures,” Capt. Charanvir Singh Randhawa, president of the association, which represents more than 6,000 pilots across India, said in an interview.
Air India did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Siddhant Chauhan, a Boeing spokesperson, referred questions to India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, which did not immediately respond.
The flight on Saturday was the second time since June that a ram air turbine was deployed on an Air India Boeing 787. On June 12, Air India Flight 171 also used the turbine on a flight headed to London, which crashed 30 seconds after takeoff from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad. The crash killed 241 of the 242 people on board, and 19 others on the ground.
A preliminary report into that accident confirmed that the device activated when the plane lost power. But investigators are still working to determine whether the turbine was a symptom or a cause of the aircraft’s loss of power.
Capt. Randhawa said the association had sent a letter on Sunday to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the national regulator, saying that an electrical fault could have caused the ram air turbine to deploy unexpectedly.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has yet to publicly confirm whether it will investigate Saturday’s Air India flight. The agency has also not responded to questions about the claims made by the pilots’ group.
Mark Walker is an investigative reporter for The Times focused on transportation. He is based in Washington.
Hari Kumar covers India, based out of New Delhi. He has been a journalist for more than two decades.
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