News provided by Business Insider – link to full story and updates
Sinéad Baker 5 hours ago
- An Air Canada Boeing 787-8 flight had to turn around Saturday when the crew spotted a crack in the windshield.
- Flight 857 was due to fly from London to Toronto but instead landed in Dublin because of the incident.
- The flight had already flown beyond Ireland and was over the Atlantic Ocean when it turned around, data from the flight-tracking website FlightRadar24 shows.
- The passengers were put on a different flight the next day, while the plane was repaired and put back into service, the aviation-news website Simple Flying reported.
- Other 787 flights have also experienced cracked windshields that prompted the planes to land.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
An Air Canada Boeing 787 plane that was flying across the Atlantic from London to Toronto instead landed in Dublin after a crack in its windshield was noticed mid-flight.
Flight 857 was about one hour into its journey Saturday and had already passed Ireland when the plane turned around, the aviation-news website Simple Flying reported.
The plane, a 787-8 model, landed in Dublin about 55 minutes after the crew reported the incident, according to Simple Flying.
Data from the flight-tracking website FlightRadar24 shows the plane’s abrupt U-turn upon finding the crack:
The passengers were put on a different 787-8 plane to continue on to Toronto the following day.
Simple Flying reported that the plane with the crack was repaired and flown back to Canada after repairs in Dublin. The plane, with a tail number of C-GHQY, is now back in regular service, according to the outlet.
Other Boeing 787 planes have experienced cracked windshields, including a Jetstar Boeing 787-8 plane that was diverted to Melbourne, Australia, while en route to Indonesia in September.
Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider about the Air Canada flight and the broader subject of cracked windshields on 787 aircraft.
The incidents have also previously involved Air Canada. In September, a flight from Shanghai to Vancouver was diverted to Tokyo after a crack appeared.
Air Canada said after that flight that the landing was precautionary because the windows had two panes of glass.
Boeing is also dealing with a separate cracking problem in its 737 plane model, in which cracks have appeared on an area called the pickle fork, which connects the plane body, wing structure, and landing gear.
This has led some airlines, like Ryanair and Qantas, to ground some of the planes after they found cracks during inspections.