BA’s London-Hyderabad flight diverted to Nagpur, grounded

Nagpur: A British Airways London-Hyderabad flight (Dreamliner) with 169 passengers onboard was diverted from the Telangana capital to Nagpur early Tuesday and remained grounded here due to a technical issue. The Dreamliner was diverted due to heavy rains in Hyderabad. Sources say the flight is likely to take off by 7 am Wednesday.
Sources said the aircraft needed a global positioning system (GPS) reset, which relates to radar and navigation, before it can take off again. The passengers have been shifted to a premium hotel, and a British Airways engineering team arrived in Nagpur late evening.The London-Hyderabad flight was scheduled to land at Shamshabad International Airport at around 4:30am, but it hovered briefly, turned away and landed in Nagpur at around 5:30am. It was learnt the airlines contacted Air India's maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) depot at Mihan-SEZ here and sought technical help. However, the airlines did not revert to MRO's query on the aircraft's technical specifications. The grounded plane also had to cover the crew's mandatory rest hours, sources said. A British Airways spokesperson told TOI that "adverse weather conditions in Hyderabad led to diversion of the aircraft to Nagpur".Some of the passengers later went to Hyderabad using alternative arrangements as others waited for the same flight to take off.On the GPS reset, sources said it was the mechanism that guided the aircraft from point to point. Though not much was divulged by the airline, it needed recalibration before take-off. Last week, the BA aircraft flew to Portland, New Orleans, Abu Dhabi and Delhi before finally reaching Nagpur, as per data on a flight-tracking app.