Dreamliner glitches: Boeing expert team flying to India

A Boeing team of experts would be flying to India to assess the situation arising out of a series of faults in Air India's Dreamliner aircraft, even as the airline insisted that the aircraft is safe.

"There are no safety issues involving the Dreamliner. There were some glitches, which are being worked out," Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh told PTI.

He said a team from Boeing would be coming to India to assess the situation and help Air India in fixing the problems occuring in the Boeing 787 fleet.

The Minister said he had discussed these issues with Boeing officials during his recent visit to the US.

Boeing engineers are already working with their Air India counterparts following the recent incident involving cracks in the cockpit screen of a Dreamliner.

The tenth of these planes that arrived in New Delhi two days ago would be put into flight operations by November 15, Air India CMD Rohit Nandan said. A total of 27 of these aircraft are on order.

"The B-787 aircraft is one of the safest commercial aircraft flying today and has many advanced features as part of its structural design to ensure safety," he told PTI.

The US manufacturer was preparing to carry out upgrades and modifications, including replacement of parts, to improve reliability of the aircraft, its operational and fuel efficiency, he said, adding these upgrades would now on become a continuous process.

Besides a cracked windshield in its cockpit, the Dreamliner has faced problems of a panel falling off from the aircraft's belly and over-heating of an oven.