Boeing 787 Planes Inspection: Air India, owned by the Tata Group, has started inspection of the fuel control switches in its Boeing 787 planes, also known as Dreamliner, following the incident of a switch malfunctioning in an aircraft that operated a flight from London Heathrow to Bengaluru on Sunday. The ews agency PTI, quoting sources, on Tuesday said an inspection of the fuel control switches across its Boeing 787 Dreamliner fleet has been launched. At present, Air India has 33 Boeing 787s.
No Glitch Found In Half Of Fleet
The inspections of half the fleet have been completed with no glitches found and the examination of the remaining aircraft of Air India are still underway, they said. The massive inspection of Air India's Boeing 787 are being carried out, following the reported defect involving a Fuel Control Switch on one of Air India's B787 aircraft. The airline company's engineering department has escalated the matter to Boeing for priority evaluation, the sources said.
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AI Escalates Fuel Control Switch Issue To Boeing
The sources quoting Air India's Senior Vice President for Flight Operations, Manish Uppal, said he told Boeing 787 pilots that the airline has initiated a fleet-wide re-inspection of the aircraft's fuel control switches. Uppal said the airline's engineering team has escalated the matter to Boeing for priority evaluation.
Air India Issues Message To Its Pilots
"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. No adverse findings have been reported on the aircraft for which this re-inspection was completed," he said in an email sent to B787 pilots. The airline asked crew to promptly report any defects observed during operations. The company also asked the pilots to ensure that all required actions are completed before accepting the aircraft.
Ahmedabad Plane Crash Due To Fuel Control Switch Issue
The massive inspections of the fuel control switches in AI Boeing 787 planes came months after the fatal crash of a Boeing 787-8 plane in Ahmedabad that killed 260 people. The incident took place due to the involvement of the fuel control switches in June.
Also, an Air India pilot on Monday reported a defect with the fuel control switch of a Boeing 787-8 plane after operating the flight from London Heathrow to Bengaluru, and the airline grounded the aircraft for checks. The flight that took off from London Heathrow on Sunday landed in Bengaluru on Monday morning.
(With PTI inputs)