October 04, 2026 09:19 pm (IST)
Follow us:
facebook-white sharing button
twitter-white sharing button
instagram-white sharing button
youtube-white sharing button
Asian Games 2026: India beat Pakistan to clinch gold in men's cricket | flydubai cockpit attack: Deleted posts expose Omani co-pilot’s views on women, alleged extremist past | flydubai cockpit horror: Omani co-pilot Hamam al-Hammami attacked Captain Smit Machchhar with crash axe, tried to seize control | flydubai temporarily suspends all Israel flights after co-pilot’s alleged cockpit attack, crash attempt | Grounded in Oman over ‘radical views’, then hired by flydubai: What we know about Omani pilot Hamam al-Hammami | ‘Hanuman Chalisa gave me courage’: Smit Machchhar recounts flydubai cockpit battle to PM Modi | PM Modi speaks to Flydubai pilot Smit Machchhar who foiled crash plot, praises his courage | Putin praises Modi’s ‘good ideas’ to end Ukraine war, thanks Indian PM for peace efforts | Flydubai cockpit attack: Injured Indian pilot Smit Machchhar airlifted to Abu Dhabi | India backs brave flydubai pilot Smit Machchhar, Ambassador meets family after cockpit attack
Air India flight crashed in a residential area in Ahmedabad after takeoff last week. Photo: PIB

Crashed Dreamliner's right engine was changed in March, left engine inspected in April: Air India

| @indiablooms | Jun 19, 2025, at 09:03 pm

The right engine of the Air India Dreamliner flight that crashed 36 seconds after takeoff from Ahmedabad's Sardar Vallabhbhai Airport was changed in March 2025, and the left engine was inspected in April, the airline's Managing Director, Campbell Wilson, said on Thursday.

The London Gatwick-bound plane was "well-maintained, with its last major inspection in June 2023 and another scheduled for December 2025", Wilson said in an email to members of its loyalty programme, Maharaja Club.

The aircraft and engines showed no issues during routine check before the flight, and the pilots - Captain Sumeet Sabharwal and First Officer Clive Kunder - had 13,400 hours of flying experience, he said.

As of now, a prevailing theory suggests that both engines of the aircraft failed or there was a hydraulic malfunction, which is supported by aural and visual evidence of the RAT, or Ram Air Turbine, deploying before the crash.

Experts, however, told the BBC that the condition of a plane's engine is not necessarily linked to its age, particularly in the case of the Genx-1B engines on the 787-8.

Wilson assured customers that "thorough safety inspections" had been ordered on Air India's Dreamliner fleet and that checks had been completed for 26, which are now cleared to fly.

As a precaution, "enhanced pre-flight safety checks" on all Boeing 787 planes will continue for the time being, resulting in a 15 percent reduction in their use.

This is expected to continue till mid-July.

Wilson said the time to perform these checks, and factors such as airspace closure over parts of West Asia, "led to a higher-than-usual number of cancellations on our long-haul network".

According to aviation regulator DGCA, Air India has cancelled 66 Dreamliner flights since the crash, with the highest number (22) the day after the disaster.

The plane had 242 people onboard, including the pilots and 10 crew members. All but one, a British-Indian man, were killed.

At least 33 people on the ground also died after the plane, which struggled to gain altitude after take-off, crashed into a residential area less than 2km from the airport.

Support Our Journalism

We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism

IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.

Support objective journalism for a small contribution.