Snag grounds AI’s direct flight to NY

Mumbai: Exactly a month after Air India launched its Mumbai-New York non-stop service amid much fanfare, the brand new Boeing 777-200LR aircraft used on the route was grounded at the Mumbai airport on Saturday night-Sunday morning, courtesy a technical snag.
But what is even more worrying is the fact that a standby aircraft, sitting in the airline’s hangar at the airport, couldn’t be used either: its instrumentation threw up a similar snag. And for Air India’s Mumbai-New York non-stop flight which was to herald a new beginning for the beleaguered carrier, this is not good news.
"There is a problem with the attitude indicator, which as the name suggests, tells the pilot about the behaviour of the aircraft when airborne,” revealed a source. An attitude indicator—also referred to as the artificial horizon—-is an instrument that informs the pilot of the airplane’s orientation relative to the ground. It indicates pitch (fore and aft tilt) and roll (side to side tilt) of the aircraft and is considered the most crucial instrument for flight.
However, in a media statement, the airline said: “The altimeter of the aircraft was not functioning. Air India is in talks with Boeing to rectify this.”
02/09/07 Lekha Agarwal/Mumbai Newsline

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Categories: Air India - International Sep 2007, NACL Oct 2007