A team of engineers from Boeing has also joined their counterparts from DGCA and Air India to investigate how a large panel fell off, Director General of Civil Aviation Arun Mishra told reporters when asked about the incident.
"It was totally undesirable. But it did not have any implication for safety of the aircraft or passengers, though we are not condoning it," he said.
Preliminary probe into the incident has found that some screws were loose and the 8x4 feet panel, which was part of the plane's belly, was secured during the flight only with about half a dozen screws instead of 17 required.
After becoming partially detached and clinging on for almost two hours, the panel finally gave in to strong winds and fell off just before the aircraft landed in Bangalore, leaving a gaping hole in the cargo hold area. The Air India Dreamliner was carrying 148 passengers and crew from Delhi.
The incident came in the wake of a series of problems faced by the new aircraft, starting with the battery fire issues that grounded all Dreamliners across the world for four months. In July, a fire broke out in an empty aircraft that was parked at Heathrow in London.