Air India flights: Boeing 787 Dreamliner flight to Delhi forced to turn back to Hong Kong after mid-air technical issue

A Delhi-bound Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner flight has been forced to turn back on Monday after the aircraft’s pilot said the jet was facing technical issues mid-air. The Air India flight, AI 315, was operating from Hong Kong to Delhi and had departed from the Asian city at 11.59am local time for its scheduled destination in New Delhi.

Officials said the aircraft landed safely back in Hong Kong around 3.20pm local time. The nature of the technical concern is not immediately clear.

The incident comes after an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane bound for London Gatwick Airport crashed in a residential area of Ahmedabad shortly after takeoff on Thursday, killing 241 people on board, the airline said. One British passenger who was thrown from the plane survived.

Black smoke billowed from the site where the plane crashed near the airport in Ahmedabad, a city of more than 5 million and the capital of Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state. Firefighters doused the smoking wreckage of the plane, which would have been fully loaded with fuel shortly after takeoff, and adjacent multistory buildings with water. Charred bodies lay on the ground and parts of the fuselage were scattered around the site.

Air India confirmed in a statement posted on X that 229 passengers and 12 crew members were killed in the crash. The only survivor was a British national of Indian origin. The flight bound for London Gatwick Airport had 169 Indians, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian passenger aboard.