Air India inspects Boeing 787 fleet over fuel control switch issue: Sources
New Delhi: Air India has begun inspections of the fuel control switches across its Boeing 787 fleet after a malfunction was reported on a Dreamliner that operated a London Heathrow–Bengaluru flight, sources said on Tuesday.
The airline currently operates 33 Boeing 787 aircraft. Following the incident, Air India’s Senior Vice President for Flight Operations, Manish Uppal, informed Boeing 787 pilots that a fleet-wide re-inspection of fuel control switches had been initiated.
Referring to the reported defect, Uppal said the airline’s engineering team has taken up the issue with aircraft manufacturer Boeing for priority assessment. “In the interim, while we await Boeing's response, our engineers — out of an abundance of caution — have initiated precautionary fleet-wide re-inspection of the Fuel Control Switch (FCS) latch to verify normal operations,” he said in an email to pilots on Tuesday.
Uppal added that inspections completed so far have not revealed any adverse findings. He also instructed flight crews to immediately report any defects noticed during operations and to ensure that all mandatory checks and corrective actions are completed before accepting an aircraft for service.
Air India had carried out similar inspections last year in the aftermath of a fatal Boeing 787-8 crash in Ahmedabad that claimed 260 lives. The functioning of the fuel control switch has remained under scrutiny since the preliminary investigation report into that crash noted that fuel supply was cut shortly after take-off.
On Monday, an Air India pilot flagged a defect in the fuel control switch of a Boeing 787-8 aircraft after operating a flight from London Heathrow to Bengaluru. The aircraft was subsequently grounded for checks. The flight, which departed London on Sunday, landed in Bengaluru on Monday morning.
At present, Air India’s Dreamliner fleet comprises 26 legacy Boeing 787-8 aircraft and seven Boeing 787-9s, including six acquired from Vistara and a custom-configured aircraft inducted into the fleet in January.
PTI