Air India AI185 Returns After 4 Hours: Aircraft Permission Mix-Up Explained

Air India flight returned to Delhi, not because of any technical issue, but because of an operational mistake.

Air India flight AI 185 was scheduled to fly from Delhi to Vancouver, scheduled to land at 1345 Local time, but after 4 hours of flight, it had to return near China and land back at Delhi airport. After flying from Delhi for almost 4 hours, they realised they had sent the wrong aircraft, which was not cleared to land in Canada because they didn’t have permission.

Air India uses the Boeing 777-200LR in place of the 777-300ER, which is permitted to operate on this route. As all counties have different permit requirements, some counties require specific aircraft to be mentioned, while others allow airlines to omit the aircraft model.

As this is done by the IOCC, the integrated operational control centre for airlines, it is responsible for scheduling aircraft. So even the pilots and ground staff are not aware of this mistake made by the backend.