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Snag grounds Air India\\'s direct flight to NY(Indian Express Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) 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 stand-by 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 altitude 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. Air India has placed an order for eight 777 Worldliners which can be used for direct ultra long haul flights, and has already taken delivery of the first three aircraft so far. Of these, two are used for maintaining the daily service while the third functions as a standby aircraft and is used on shorter routes for now. "Although the standby aircraft was in the hangar on Saturday night, that couldn't be used either since both aircraft seem to be experiencing a similar problem," according to the source. "The attitude indicator is very crucial and is a no go item. That is, the pilot cannot operate a flight without it," the source added. 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." While passengers were earlier told the flight would take off at 8 am on Sunday morning, airline officials realised that the crew would have exceeded their permissible flight duty times, and it was later decided to reschedule the flight to 11:30 pm on Sunday. Copyright 2007 The Indian Express Online Media Ltd, Source: The Financial Times Limited |