While I’m not sure what exactly to make of this, it certainly isn’t normal, and makes for quite a story…
In this post:
Something’s wrong with an American Boeing 787-8
It’s normal for planes to once in a while return to their origin due to a maintenance issue, since airplanes are complex machines that sometimes malfunction. However, one of American’s eight-year-old Boeing 787-8s with the registration code N819AN seems to be having issues with a frequency that’s raising eyebrows, as reported by @xJonNYC.
AA aircraft N819AN. If I’m getting the full picture, this 787 has had an incredibly bad month or so– like not quite like much I’ve really seen before really. Diversions, aborted take-offs, out of service, etc. I’m still reading though it allavherald.com/h?article=52…
— JonNYC (@xjonnyc.bsky.social) February 1, 2025 at 11:44 AM
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On January 7, 2025, the aircraft was supposed to operate from Amsterdam (AMS) to Philadelphia (PHL) as flight AA203. It took off, only to land back in Amsterdam just under 90 minutes later.
The plane ended up being taken out of service for a few days, and then eventually operated a flight again on January 10, 2025, returning to Philadelphia. A few hours after returning to Philadelphia, the same plane departed for Dublin (DUB) as flight AA722. That flight didn’t last long, because less than an hour later, the aircraft returned to Philadelphia.
The plane was once again taken out of service for a few days, and then eventually operated a flight again on January 13, 2025, to Barcelona (BCN). That flight went off without a hitch, or something. Then on January 14, 2025, the same plane was supposed to operate back to Philadelphia as flight AA743. However, the flight ended up being canceled due to a maintenance issue.
The aircraft stayed grounded in Barcelona until January 19, 2025, at which point it was supposed to operate back to Philadelphia as flight AA9781. Anyone want to take a wild guess as to what happened? Yep, you guessed right — the plane took off, and just over 30 minutes later, it was back on the ground in Barcelona.
After four more days on the ground, American clearly realized something was wrong with the aircraft, and on January 19, 2025, ferried it to Dallas (DFW), so it could undergo further maintenance. The plane remained grounded in Dallas through January 23, 2025, at which point it reentered service.
Well, the plane managed to operate four successful flights with passengers. Then on February 1, 2025, the plane operated its fifth flight from Zurich (ZRH) to Philadelphia as flight AA93. The plane took off, and less than an hour later, the plane returned to its origin. Now that’s where it’s on the ground.
Just to recap, between January 7 and February 1 (25 days), the plane had four diversions, all while spending 19 days on the ground with maintenance issues.
What’s going on with this American Boeing 787-8?
The Aviation Herald reports that the initial January 7 diversion was due to an issue with the flaps, which required a return to Amsterdam. When the flight was rescheduled for the next day, it ended up being canceled due to a hydraulic leak.
It’s not known what the subsequent diversions were for, though I have a hard time imagining that they were completely unrelated.
Obviously it’s very strange to see an aircraft divert so often. However, in light of the fact that we recently saw a major commercial accident, let me note that these diversions are done out of an abundance of caution. If there’s an issue with flaps, it might impact the ability to operate a long haul flight, but it doesn’t impact the ability to land safely. In other words, let’s not blow this out of proportion — it’s very strange, but we have no reason to believe that anyone was ever in danger.
Still, one wonders what exactly is going on. The plane was constantly grounded for days at a time, so you’d think that maintenance workers were examining the aircraft and trying to figure out what was wrong. The plane was even ferried back to Dallas empty, which isn’t exactly cheap.
Yet even after that check at one of American’s largest maintenance facilities, the plane had an issue again. I don’t have nearly enough knowledge of aircraft maintenance to chime in here on what can cause this. But one certainly assumes that in each situation, the airline thought the problem was fixed, or else they wouldn’t have attempted to put the plane back into service. And that makes one wonder what caused such a disconnect.
Bottom line
One particular American Boeing 787-8 has had quite a rough several weeks. Over the course of 25 days, the plane has diverted four times, and has spent 19 days grounded and in maintenance. That’s most definitely not normal, and it’s especially strange how the airline keeps putting the plane back into service.
I’ll definitely be tracking this tail number, and am curious to see what happens next.
What do you make of this strange American Boeing 787 issue?
Was it a Friday plane?
Please recheck your dates. Jan 19-23 specifically.
the common factor is Philadelphia. This Plane has achieved self awareness and clearly has no interest in going there. Having used PHL often, can't say I disagree.
Another 787 with (apparent) issues is G-TUII. In recent days, it diverted to YYT, BHX and MAN...
"If there’s an issue with flaps, it might impact the ability to operate a long haul flight, but it doesn’t impact the ability to land safely. "
Huh??
Issue with flaps can very much affect your ability to land safely.
That's an absurd number of failures for a single aircraft. Perhaps a bad wiring bundle or a bum engine? Certainly doesn't seem like "normal" maintenance issues.
An aircraft with that history of air-returns OBVIOUSLY has an underlying mechanical issue. If the A&Ps at AA can't isolate the issue, probably time to send it to heavy check early. Would end up costing less than all the disruptions.
More likely a software issue or it could be a GPM. They seem to be breaking quite often at the moment and there’s a shortage of them worldwide
Reminds me a bit of Lion Air Flight 610, where they encountered multiple issues with AP while flight, reported it, maintenance did -something- on next flight they had the same issue. Until it was -fixed- with a wrong part and there wasn’t another try.
Either AA maintenance has some level of incompetency diagnosing and fixing the problem, or the aircraft has some serious issues and a catastrophic situation might unfold soon. Either way, it's quite dangerous.
You are dang well right you have no knowledge of aircraft maintenance so why don’t you just carry on? This article is just too silly and repeat discrepancy is most definitely normal actually. It is literally same thing when you have symptoms and going to doctor and then you keep coming back because it hasn’t improved. Same thing. Get this article rid of.
You obviously have no knowledge how news works and your comment makes no sense whatsoever.
Says Ben has no knowledge of aircraft maintenance. Proceeds to provide zero additional knowledge of aircraft maintenance, just state repeated failure to diagnose and fix the problem is normal (sure, airlines love canceling flights and losing revenue, no biggie) with no explanation or detail.
@f15x2b and @No Name…probs the same person…what are your credentials? Do you comment the same on sites such as NY Times, WaPo, etc? If you’re so legit, why do you read this blog…and it is a BLOG!!
Why did this article make you so angry? Lol
I think DEI is playing out with this plane and scenario. Have a -8 doing work that a -9 or a -10 could do? Clearly it's a DEI issue and must be resolved by eliminating DEI in the 787 family.
Are we joking about the latest ignorant Republican talking point?
<Thats right and ask the new guy in the White House. He know everything............
Am I reading this wrong or is there a date inconsistency? On January 19th it tried to depart BCN but had to return, stayed on the ground for four days, and then on January 19th was ferried to Dallas? Something can't be correct there.
"The aircraft stayed grounded in Barcelona until January 19, 2025, at which point it was supposed to operate back to Philadelphia..."
"After four more days on the ground, American clearly realized...
Am I reading this wrong or is there a date inconsistency? On January 19th it tried to depart BCN but had to return, stayed on the ground for four days, and then on January 19th was ferried to Dallas? Something can't be correct there.
"The aircraft stayed grounded in Barcelona until January 19, 2025, at which point it was supposed to operate back to Philadelphia..."
"After four more days on the ground, American clearly realized something was wrong with the aircraft, and on January 19, 2025, ferried it to Dallas..."
Is this a Charleston assembled plane or Seattle assembled plane?
all 787s are built in Charleston
All 787-8s were built in Everett.
@D.A. it's an Everett build.
@mike Boeing assembled 787s at their Everett Washington plant until March 2021
Are you sure it's a plane? It seems to be more like a boomerang !
The plane definitely needs flaps to land, they will not affect the long haul flight, but they will affect the landing. Flaps are NOT used during the flight, only used for takeoff and landing!
"If there’s an issue with flaps, it might impact the ability to operate a long haul flight, but it doesn’t impact the ability to land safely."
So if one flap is extended and the other isn't, no problem?
Ross it’s not “not a problem” because clearly there is a problem. Google “Asymmetrical flaps” and see what happens. Planes big and little can, albeit not ideal, land safely and have done so. Pilots train for these procedures extensively before taking command. However in this incident we are talking commercial. Commercial pilots are very well trained how to handle a jet small and large should this occur. In a perfect world you would not have...
Ross it’s not “not a problem” because clearly there is a problem. Google “Asymmetrical flaps” and see what happens. Planes big and little can, albeit not ideal, land safely and have done so. Pilots train for these procedures extensively before taking command. However in this incident we are talking commercial. Commercial pilots are very well trained how to handle a jet small and large should this occur. In a perfect world you would not have it happen. If the other flap was operational, you would most likely set the working flap to match the stuck flap. After that you adjust your landing, speed and other settings and perhaps change airports depending on runway length. There are a lot more variables that I could list but your question is can it safely be landed? Yes, it can. Is it easy? Not necessarily, but a skilled pilot of which commercial pilots are can, handle it.
He's being sarcastic and pointing out the obvious inaccurate statement of "flaps not being a problem for landing".
After listening to LiveATC the diversion in Zurich today appears to be the same issue it had originally in Amsterdam, a flap problem. I’m also not in commercial aircraft maintenance but seems odd they did no flight testing before flying it to PHL to head over to Europe.
Depending on what issue/system it gets troubleshot to you can do operational checks for flaps while on the ground by cycling them through configuration settings and checking the actuation and associated functions/systems.
An American made piece of junk.
The 787 has one of the least number of incidents of any commercial aircraft flying. You do not know your facts. You seem to have an ax to grind and it detracts from sincere and honest discussion.
Uh? The 787 was the the first airliner type that was grounded by the FAA since 1979; it's was only luck that nobody died due to its various incidents.
As an aircraft engineer who works on the 787 I am going to contradict you on your i that the 787 is the most reliable aircraft flying. That’s simply not true. The A330 is far more reliable.
Try turning it off, waiting 15 seconds, and then turning it on again. That usually works with my laptop.
@mildmidwesterner
You’re not wrong. With these “electric jets” 757-787 and later 747s, I would turn the jet off, (power cycle) including the battery and then bring it all back up. Until the pilots were told not to troubleshoot and just put it in the book.
Works 95% of the time. Some of the faults are ghosts in the machine.
The 787 specifically has to be powered off every 51 days. Operators need to...
@mildmidwesterner
You’re not wrong. With these “electric jets” 757-787 and later 747s, I would turn the jet off, (power cycle) including the battery and then bring it all back up. Until the pilots were told not to troubleshoot and just put it in the book.
Works 95% of the time. Some of the faults are ghosts in the machine.
The 787 specifically has to be powered off every 51 days. Operators need to power-cycle their B787s before the aircraft reaches the specified days of continuous power-on operation. The power cycling is needed to prevent stale data from populating the aircraft's systems, a problem that has occurred on different 787 systems in the past. If the aircraft is powered on for more than 51 days this can lead to "display of misleading data" to the pilots,
Diversions happen all the time as you say. You would really want to know "how many other 787s have had maintenance-related diversions within days" to say whether this is really something unusual and a systematic problem with this plane. There are probably like 3 other 787s that have had more than 1 diversion in the last 2 weeks.
It's not even stated whether the diversion reasons were all the same or vaguely related.
...Diversions happen all the time as you say. You would really want to know "how many other 787s have had maintenance-related diversions within days" to say whether this is really something unusual and a systematic problem with this plane. There are probably like 3 other 787s that have had more than 1 diversion in the last 2 weeks.
It's not even stated whether the diversion reasons were all the same or vaguely related.
Otherwise this is just someone noticing an odd pattern (as unfortunate as it is) and implying something is unusually wrong with this plane. Hard to say.
"Boeing’s regional director Product Marketing Tarun Hazari told Airlineratings.com that the 787’s reliability is a “fantastic story” achieving a rate 99.4 percent, just behind the 777-300ERs 99.46 percent.
source: https://www.airlineratings.com/articles/boeing-787-reliability-soaring
5 returns to departure out of 50 flights (25 days * 2 per day)
For 787s I don't know whether the proportion that return to departure is 0.1% or 0.001% but I'm fairly sure it is nowhere close to 10%
Boeing lol
AA has a horrific record for MX delays and cancelations. Recently I was stranded in Bonaire for 2 days only to get to Miami to have my sfo cancel too due to MX. (Ex VX bird too).
Ben asks what readers think. There is insufficient information to make a conclusion. If it is the same flap issue, then major uphaul of the parts or electronics might be needed. If it is a wide variety of different issues and systems, then it might be an early build 787-8 with design flaws. It might then be better to try to scrap the plane. A third possibility is that the plane is haunted, but that explanation would be laughed at.
.. or she might just be a "hangar queen". That's not as uncommon as many people think.
That's we called them in the military.
Looks like a lemon.
That's a given...it's Boeing.
May not be dangerous but it doesn't sound right either. Would you be willing to fly on this plane today knowing the information that you know? I highly doubt it.
In my mind I read “fifth flight” as “fifth freedom flight “. Yeah this aircraft should be taken out of service .
I just dropped some shorts on my YouTube channel @d3kingg 387 hit me up OMAAT fam.
Typo: "blow this out of promotion"
@ JoePro -- Whoops, thank you!