Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: Air India has launched a fleet-wide inspection of fuel control switches on its Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft after a malfunction was reported on a flight from London Heathrow to Bengaluru.The move follows an incident earlier this week in which a pilot flagged a defect in the fuel control switch of a Boeing 787-8 aircraft after landing in Bengaluru. The aircraft, which operated the London–Bengaluru flight, was immediately grounded for detailed checks.
Confirming the action, Air India’s senior vice president for flight operations, Manish Uppal, informed Boeing 787 pilots that the airline had initiated a precautionary re-inspection of the entire Dreamliner fleet.“Following the reported defect involving a fuel control switch on one of the B787 aircraft, our engineering team has escalated the matter to Boeing for priority evaluation,” Uppal said in an internal communication, PTI quoted sources.“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 added.Uppal further informed pilots that no adverse findings had been reported so far on the aircraft that have already undergone re-inspection.He also directed crew members to promptly report any defects noticed during operations and to ensure that all mandatory checks are completed before accepting an aircraft for service.At present, Air India operates 33 Boeing 787 aircraft. These include 26 Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners from the legacy Air India fleet and seven Boeing 787-9 aircraft, of which six were inducted from Vistara and one is a custom-made plane added to the fleet in January this year.The latest inspections come amid heightened scrutiny of the aircraft’s fuel control system. The functioning of the fuel control switch has been under focus since a fatal crash involving a Boeing 787-8 last June, in which 260 people lost their lives. The preliminary investigation report into that accident had pointed to a possible fuel supply cutoff soon after take-off.Air India had carried out similar inspections last year following the tragic crash.The airline has now assured that all necessary precautions are being taken and that the issue has been escalated to Boeing for further technical evaluation.
