Following a preliminary report on the recent Air India plane crash that killed 260 people, India’s aviation authority has ordered the nation’s airlines to inspect the fuel switch locks on their Boeing aircraft, according to a report in The Guardian.
Regulators in South Korea are similarly planning to order all of its airlines to check the fuel switches on any Boeing planes in their fleets, according to a Reuters report.
India’s ongoing investigation into the crash has found that the Boeing 787-8 plane’s fuel switches were turned to the off position just moments after takeoff. Fuel switch locks on board Boeing aircraft were also at the center of a 2018 advisory from the FAA for airlines around the world to check the switches on several types of planes, according to Reuters.
That advisory, which was a recommendation and not a mandate from the FAA, suggested carriers check the locking mechanism on Boeing aircraft fuel switches to ensure they couldn’t be moved by mistake. The 787 Dreamliner was one of the aircraft types listed in that alert.
According to the preliminary crash report, Air India did not carry out the optional fuel switch checks in 2018. However, Reuters notes that records show the plane’s throttle control module, a system that encompasses the fuel switches, had been replaced in 2019 and 2023 after it had reached 24,000 flight hours, which is routine maintenance.
Since the crash, Air India has been checking the fuel switch locks on all of its Boeing 787 and 737 planes, Reuters reports. The airline is about halfway through its fleet, and no problems have been found so far.
The crash investigation is still underway, and an official cause has yet to be determined. “The preliminary report identified no cause nor made any recommendations, so I urge everyone to avoid drawing premature conclusions as the investigation is far from over,” Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said in a memo to employees on Monday, according to The Guardian.
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