Akasa Air: No impact on flights due to snag-prone rudder part

Akasa Air has 14 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft with the snag-prone rudder components , but the airline has said that the issue will not impact its flight operations.

“Akasa can confirm that there will be no disruptions to our flight schedule as a result of the latest DGCA/ Boeing advisories,” the airline said in a press statement.

Akasa’s 14 out of a total fleet of 25 Boeing 737 MAXs carried the identified rudder actuators, a senior DGCA official confirmed. The airline though refrained to give a specific number. Two other operators that comprise Boeing 737 aircraft in their fleet in India were Air India Express and SpiceJet. The former said it had 5 of these planes and it was complying the regulator’s advice, while the latter had no plane with the specific rudder actuators.

On Monday, the DGCA had issued an advisory asking airlines that had Boeing 737 NG and MAX planes in their fleet to not use them for low-visibility flight operations if they carried a specific rudder actuator produced by Collins Aerospace. The DGCA scrutiny follows the U.S. accident investigation body, the National Transport Safety Board pulling up the aviation regulator of that country and Boeing for downplaying the risks of the rudder actuator issue following an incident in February involving a United Airlines Boeing 737 MAX aircraft during a landing at Newark, New Jersey.

It is learnt, that Boeing had informed affected airlines identifying the potentially risky rudder actuators in their aircraft.

Boeing says that the component is part of an optional autoland system, which includes layers of redundancy. procedures.”

Published - October 08, 2024 09:33 pm IST