Air India inspects Boeing 787 fleet after fuel control switch fault

Air India has launched a wide-scale inspection of fuel control switches on its Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft after sudden malfunction was reported on a flight returning from London Heathrow to Bengaluru on Sunday, news agency PTI reported citing sources.

The move comes amid heightened scrutiny of the aircraft’s fuel systems following last year’s fatal crash involving a Boeing 787-8.

As reported by PTI, the pilot reported that a fault was found in the fuel control switch of a Boeing 787-8 after completing the London Heathrow-Bengaluru service.

The flight which took off from London on Sunday landed in Bangalore on Monday morning. After the report kicked in, the airline grounded the aircraft with some technical defect.  

The incident prompted the authorities to take action and inspect its Dreamliner fleet.  

Air India’s Senior Vice President for Flight Operations, Manish Uppal, informed Boeing 787 pilots about the inspection drive through an internal email, sources told PTI.

“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 wrote.

“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 latch to verify normal operations,” he added.

Uppal also reported that the pilots had no adverse findings as reported where inspections are already completed.

He also asked pilots to ensure that all mandatory technical checks and corrective actions are completed before accepting an aircraft for operations.

Sources told PTI the airline is closely monitoring feedback from crew members as part of the ongoing safety review.

“The matter has been escalated to Boeing for detailed evaluation,” a source said.

At present, Air India operates 33 Boeing 787 aircraft, comprising 26 Boeing 787-8s and seven Boeing 787-9s.

Sources said inspections are being carried out across both variants as part of the current exercise.