After pilot flags possible defect, Air India initiates precautionary inspection of Boeing 787 fuel control switches

After an Air India pilot flagged a possible defect with an engine fuel control switch in one of the airline’s Boeing 787 aircraft, the Tata group airline has initiated a precautionary fleet-wide inspection of the fuel control switch latch on its Boeing 787s “out of abundance of caution”, according to sources in the know. The airline has 33 Boeing 787 wide-body jets in its fleet.

On Monday, an Air India pilot had reported to the airline that one of the two fuel control switches on a Boring 787 (registration: VT-ANX) was slipping from RUN to CUTOFF position if pushed down slightly, and was not locking properly in its position. The aircraft, which operated a London-Bengaluru flight that landed in India Monday morning, was then grounded.

Engine fuel control switches have been at the focus of the investigation into the fatal crash of an Air India Boeing 787 jet in Ahmedabad in June last year, with the preliminary probe report saying that the accident occurred after both engines of the ill-fated aircraft were starved as both its fuel control switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position within a second of each other moments after lift-off.

According to sources aware of the matter, Air India’s Senior Vice President for Flight Operations Manish Uppal informed the airline’s Boeing 787 pilots that while the issue had been escalated to Boeing for priority evaluation, in the interim, the airline’s engineers have started a precautionary inspection.