Qatar Airways Boeing 787-9 Diverts During Customer Acceptance Flight

A Qatar Airways Boeing 787-9 conducting its customer acceptance flight on November 10th was listed as having diverted due to problems. The aircraft, assembled in 2020, was taking its 8th test flight in advance of being delivered to the Middle Eastern carrier.

Flight and aircraft details

As per data from the website Aviation Flights, the Boeing 787-9 with Qatari registration A7-BHK was on its customer acceptance flight when it “diverted back to PAE due to problems.” PAE is the IATA code for Paine Field in Everett, also known as Seattle Paine Field International Airport.

Flightradar24 shows that the aircraft took off from PAE at 11:33 local time and landed back at the airport at approximately 12:12. The jet flew a large figure-eight pattern, getting as far as Olympic National Park. It reached a maximum altitude of 26,000 feet (FL260).

Photo: Flightradar24

The aircraft has the manufacturer’s serial numbers (MSN) 64221 and Line Number 1063 and took its first test flight in October 2020. It was then ferried to Victorville for storage and remained there until April 2023, at which point it returned to Paine Field. After six months on the ground at PAE, it conducted a functional check flight on October 11th before flying to Portland (PDX) to be painted several days later.

A rare occurrence

Tracking pre-delivery activity with Aviation Flights, this type of status is undoubtedly a rare occurrence. Typically, customer acceptance flights take place without issue and are eventually followed by a delivery flight to the airline customer.

While it’s rare to see Aviation Flights mark a flight as having diverted due to problems, test flights are often marked as ‘diverted’ on flight tracking platforms like Flightradar24. This is due to the non-public nature of test flights and information being logged in a certain way due to automation. For example, a Gulf Air 787-9 customer acceptance flight on November 10th took it from Paine Field to Moses Lake and back to Paine Field. Aviation Flights logged these take-offs and landings as a single test flight event, while Flightradar24 lists the flight as having ‘diverted’ to Moses Lake.

Qatar Airways’ 45th 787

Whether or not problems actually exist, the jet is set to be Qatar Airways’ 15th Boeing 787-9 and its 45th 787 overall. In recent months, 787-9 deliveries have been trickling into Qatar Airways as Boeing works through its backlog of undelivered aircraft. Two jets arrived in September 2023, and one was delivered in August 2023. At this point, the aircraft are between two and three years of age.

Sources: Planespotters.net, Flightradar24, Aviation Flights