Today's Edition
AHMEDABAD/NEW DELHI (REUTERS)
India's government is urgently inspecting all Boeing 787s after a devastating Air India crash that claimed at least 270 lives this week, the aviation minister said on Saturday, adding that the authorities were investigating all possible causes.
The aviation regulator on Friday ordered Air India to conduct additional maintenance checks on its Boeing 787-8/9 aircraft equipped with GEnx engines, including assessments of certain take-off parameters, electronic engine control tests and engine fuel-related checks.
"We have also given the order to do the extended surveillance of the 787 planes. There are 34 in our Indian fleet," aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu told a media briefing in New Delhi.
"Eight have already been inspected and with immediate urgency, all of them are going to be done."
Air India operates 33 Boeing 787s, while rival airline IndiGo has one, according to data from Flightradar24.
The planes, however, have not been grounded, but a source on Friday told Reuters the Indian government was considering that as an option.
Naidu also said the government will look at all possible theories of what led to the crash.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner with 242 people on board bound for Britain's Gatwick Airport began losing height seconds after take-off on Thursday and erupted in a fireball as it hit buildings below, in what has been the world's worst aviation disaster in a decade.
At least 270 bodies have been recovered from the site of the plane crash, Dhaval Gameti, president of the Junior Doctors Association at B.J. Medical College, told reporters.
Only one of the 242 passengers and crew onboard survived while others were killed as the plane struck the medical college's hostel as it came down.
Dozens of anxious family members have been waiting outside an Ahmedabad hospital to collect bodies of loved ones killed in the crash, as doctors were working overtime to gather dental samples from the deceased to run identification checks and DNA profiling.
