Air India has begun inspecting the fuel control switches across its fleet of Boeing 787 aircraft after a switch malfunction was reported on a Dreamliner that operated a London Heathrow-Bengaluru flight on Sunday, sources told news agency PTI.
The airline currently operates 33 Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
Following the incident, Air India's Senior Vice President for Flight Operations, Manish Uppal, informed 787 pilots that a fleet-wide re-inspection of fuel control switches is underway.
According to sources, Uppal said the airline's engineering team has also escalated the issue to aircraft manufacturer Boeing for priority assessment after the defect was detected in one of the B787 aircraft.
No adverse findings have been reported
"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 on Tuesday.
Uppal also said that no adverse findings have been reported on the aircraft for which this re-inspection was completed, he said in the email sent to B787 pilots.
Further, Air India has asked crew to promptly report any defects observed during operations and to ensure that all required actions are completed before accepting the aircraft.
Air India inspected fuel control switches last year
Air India had carried out inspections of fuel control switches last year following the fatal crash of a Boeing 787-8 aircraft in Ahmedabad that claimed 260 lives.
On Monday, an Air India pilot reported a fault in the fuel control switch of a Boeing 787-8 aircraft after operating a London Heathrow–Bengaluru flight, prompting the airline to ground the plane for detailed checks. The flight departed London Heathrow on Sunday and landed in Bengaluru on Monday morning.
The fuel control switch has come under renewed scrutiny after the June crash, as the preliminary investigation report noted that fuel supply to the aircraft was cut off shortly after take-off.
Air India currently operates a fleet of 33 Boeing 787 aircraft, comprising 26 legacy Boeing 787-8s and seven Boeing 787-9s. The 787-9 fleet includes six aircraft acquired from Vistara and one custom-built Dreamliner inducted into the fleet in January.
