An Air India flight on the same route as a plane that crashed last week has been cancelled because of ‘precautionary checks’, the airline said on Tuesday.
Flight AI159 was planned to depart Ahmedabad, India, at 1.10pm local time on Tuesday, and arrive at Gatwick airport at 6.25pm BST.
But the flight was cancelled after being initially delayed by one hour and 50 minutes, Air India’s website shows.
A flight from Gatwick to Amritsar, India, set to depart at 8pm BST was also axed.
The cancelled flights were scheduled to be operated by a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, which is the same type of aircraft that crashed shortly after take-off at Ahmedabad on June 12.
An Air India spokesperson said: ‘Flight AI 159 from Ahmedabad to Gatwick has been cancelled today due to the unavailability of the aircraft, resulting from airspace restrictions and additional precautionary checks, leading to longer than usual turnaround of aircraft, and not due to any technical snag as claimed.
Local media had reported that AI159 was suspended due to technical issues after arriving from New Delhi.
Flight AI159 is the renumbered version of the same Ahmedabad to Gatwick flight that crashed in a residential area on Thursday.
Last week’s crash was one of the deadliest plane accidents in terms of the number of British nationals killed.
The Air India aircraft struck a medical college hostel in a residential part of Ahmedabad, killing 241 of the 242 people on board, 52 of whom were British.
British father Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, was identified last week as the sole survivor of Thursday’s crash.
People look at the debris of an Air India plane crashed in Ahmedabad of India’s Gujarat state, June 12, 2025
Debris from Flight AI171 after it crashed in the Indian city of Ahmedabad on Thursday
A view of the site where a plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in India’s western state of Gujarat on June 12, 2025
Air India today said that passengers affected by Tuesday’s cancellation are being offered hotel accommodation and full refunds or rescheduling.
‘We regret the inconvenience caused to our passengers and have made alternative arrangements to fly them to their destination,’ a spokesperson said.
Flights have been leaving Ahmedabad airport since the tragedy. Authorities in India have ordered inspections of Air India’s Dreamliners.
Flight data shows that an Air India flight AI159 from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick landed yesterday, after being delayed some three hours in India.
Among the passengers was at least one person who was supposed to have been on the doomed Flight AI171, but rescheduled at the last minute.
Jayesh Ramji, 34, told the Times of India he had delayed his return to London, where he works, to stay with his ailing mother.
‘I pushed my travel to June 16 as my mother was unwell,’ he said. ‘Now I just hope to get home safe.’
The flight was also due to depart at 1:10pm, but left the airport at 4:30pm local time and safely landed at Gatwick at 9:32pm.
On Monday, an Air India Express flight from Delhi to Ranchi was diverted back to the capital shortly after takeoff due to a suspected technical issue.
An India flight AI315 from Delhi to Hong Kong on Monday also had to turn back because of what Air India described as ‘a technical issue’ without giving details.
It said the flight landed safely and was undergoing checks ‘as a matter of abundant precaution’.
And a British Airways Boeing Dreamliner from London Heathrow to Chennai in India was forced to divert on Sunday after encountering a technical issue.
People look at the debris of an Air India plane crashed in Ahmedabad of India’s Gujarat state
One person escaped alive from the wreckage, British citizen Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, whose brother was also on the flight
Dabu Patni cries upon hearing the news of her brother Akash Patni, who died when the Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed in Ahmedabad, India, June 12, 2025
Kalpeshbhai Patni, 28, mourns as he sits outside the postmortem room at a hospital, for his brother Akash Patni, 14, who died when the Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner plane crashed
Caution continues to hang over air travel in the wake of last Thursday’s tragedy, with investigators yet to identify a cause.
There were 53 British nationals on board Flight AI171 when it crashed into a residential area near the airport, as well as 159 Indian nationals, seven Portuguese citizens and a Canadian.
Authorities announced Sunday that the second black box, the cockpit voice recorder, had been recovered from Flight AI171. This may offer investigators more clues about what went wrong.
Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said Saturday he hoped decoding the first black box, the flight data recorder, would ‘give an in-depth insight’ into the circumstances of the crash.
Aviation experts believe the Boeing 787 Dreamliner may suddenly lost power ‘at the most critical phase of flight’ after takeoff.
The possible causes are believed to include a rapid change in wind or a bird strike leading to a double-engine stall.
Commercial airline pilot Steve Schreiber, who analyses plane crashes and close calls, said a new HD-quality video is a ‘gamechanger’ in diagnosing the cause and suggested the footage supported the dual engine failure theory.
He pointed out that in the footage, a small device is seen extended underneath the plane’s fuselage, known as the Ram Access Turbine (RAT), whose function is to support the aircraft’s electrical power and hydraulic pressure in an emergency.
Schreiber said that on a 787 there are three things that will deploy the RAT automatically: a massive electrical failure; a massive hydraulic failure; or a dual engine failure.
A crane retrieves part of the fuselage of the Air India Boeing 787 on June 14, 2025
The Boeing jet took off from Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel airport in the northwestern Indian state of Gujarat at 1:38pm local time (08:08 BST).
The flight reached an altitude of just 625 feet, or 190 metres, according to flight tracking service Flightradar24.
There it glided, seemingly suspended midair, but seconds later began descending rapidly as the engines appeared to give out.
The underside of the jet smashed into a building housing trainee doctors working at the nearby BJ Medical College and Civil Hospital, killing dozens more civilians.
The death toll now stands at 279 as rescuers continue picking through rubble.
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .