All Nippon Airways Checking Cause Of Boeing 787 Dreamliner Landing Gear Glitch

• Jet lands after pilots forced to manually deploy landing gear in second approach.

• Problems comes less than a week after ANA launched domestic service using 787 jets.

• 249-seater plane has undergone maintenance review.

TOKYO --All Nippon Airways Co. said Monday that one of its new Boeing 787 Dreamliners experienced a technical glitch just a week after the airline became the first to put the highly anticipated passenger plane into regular service.

As the flight from Tokyo's Haneda airport approached Okayama airport, western Japan, on Sunday morning, an error message showed that the plane's landing gear had not properly deployed, forcing the pilots to try a second approach using manually lowered landing gear.

ANA said that the problem had not occurred during any of the flight tests conducted prior to introducing the jet into domestic service from Nov. 1.

An ANA spokeswoman said the glitch is a minor malfunction that "occurs frequently on other aircraft," but did not specify how many times it has happened.

The 249-seat aircraft has already undergone a maintenance review. The spokeswoman said the landing gear did not deploy because of a problem with the hydraulic valve, adding that the airline is still investigating the exact cause of the fault.

The flight to Okayama was sold out on Sunday morning, ANA said. The pilot notified the passengers of the error message before circling back for a second approach and landing safely shortly after 9 a.m. local time. The glitch delayed the plane's arrival by 30 minutes.

ANA launched the world's first charter passenger flight of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner to much fanfare less than two weeks ago. The airline began two regular domestic service routes--from Tokyo to Hiroshima and Okayama, both in western Japan--several days later on Nov. 1.

As the Dreamliner's inaugural customer, ANA currently has two of the jets in its fleet. The company has ordered 55 jets and expects to have seven in its possession by year's end.

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TOKYO — An All Nippon Airways Boeing 787 Dreamliner carrying 249 people had to make a second approach at a west Japan airport before landing, after a glitch forced the pilot to manually deploy the main landing gear, the airline said Monday.

The first glitch on a commercial flight for the new plane occurred on a domestic route Sunday after a cockpit monitor showed that the landing gear had not fully deployed shortly before landing, ANA said.

As flight 651 from Tokyo's Haneda airport approached Okayama airport in western Japan, the monitor issued a warning that the main landing gear had not deployed due to a hydraulic valve fault, an ANA spokeswoman said.

The glitch forced the pilot to circle the airport and manually deploy the main landing gear, she said.

"The plane went around again as the pilot manually lowered the landing gear," the ANA spokeswoman said. The jet carrying 249 passengers and crew touched down afterwards slightly later its scheduled 8:50 am (2350 GMT) landing time, she said.

The long-awaited 787 made its first commercial flight from Tokyo to Hong Kong on October 26.

ANA was the first customer to receive the fuel efficient jets touted by Boeing as an industry game-changer as the first mid-sized plane to fly long-haul, amid hopes it will help attract more customers and boost sales.

But the delivery of the first 787 to its launch carrier came more than three years behind schedule and billion of dollars over budget due to production and design problems.

Sunday's glitch came less than a week after a Boeing 767-300 with 220 passengers on board made an emergency landing on its belly at Warsaw international airport after its landing gear failed on a flight from Newark in the United States.

All passengers and crew safely disembarked. Raw video footage of the emergency landing showed the plane skidding down the landing strip on its belly in a splattering cloud of white foam and sparks.

ANA, which launched its first domestic services with the new 787 jet one week ago, is scheduled to use it for international service on a Haneda-Beijing route and on a Haneda-Frankfurt route in the near future.

Boeing says the twin-aisle 787's construction, partly from lightweight composite materials, means it consumes 20 percent less fuel than comparable planes, an attractive proposition for airlines facing soaring fuel costs.

The Chicago-based aerospace and defence giant has also been touting the larger windows, bigger luggage storage bins and improved cabin humidity than conventional jets, a factor it says will reduce traveller fatigue.