Air India's midair emergency sparks new alarm over the safety of the Boeing Dreamliner

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NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s leading body of pilots has asked the civil aviation regulator to inspect all Boeing 787 Dreamliners operating in the country for electrical issues after one of the planes abruptly deployed an emergency power system midair over the weekend.

The device, a small propeller that acts as a backup generator and which is known as the ram air turbine, or RAT, normally would be activated when an aircraft's engines lose power, its hydraulic systems register critically low pressure or its electrical systems fail.

However, the RAT engaged unexpectedly on Saturday aboard Air India flight 117 from the northern Indian city of Amritsar moments before it landed safely in Birmingham, England.

The Federation of Indian Pilots, which represents about 6,000 pilots, asked for the investigation Sunday evening.

Air India, owned by business conglomerate Tata Group, said in a statement that an initial inspection following the weekend incident found that “all electrical and hydraulic parameters were normal” and that the aircraft landed safely.

The midair deployment of the emergency device has reignited concerns in India over the safety of the Dreamliner. In June, an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner bound for London crashed in the northwestern city of Ahmedabad, killing 260 people including 19 on the ground, in one of India’s worst aviation disasters.

A preliminary report into the June 12 crash found that the fuel control switches for the engines were moved from the “run” to the “cutoff” position moments before impact, starving both engines of fuel. The RAT system activated as it was supposed to have done when the plane lost power and engine thrust, the report said.

Charanvir Singh Randhawa, president of the Federation of Indian Pilots, said that he'd never heard of the RAT system being deployed even when there are no problems in the engines, hydraulics or electrical systems, as appeared to be the case over the weekend. "It’s a serious concern that warrants a detailed inquiry,” he said.

Randhawa, whose career spans five decades in aviation, wrote an email to India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation on Sunday, apprising it of the incident and urging an investigation into the electrical systems of all Boeing Dreamliners operating in India.

A spokesman for India’s Civil Aviation Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment, and a spokeswoman for Boeing India was not immediately available for comment.