Air India starts inspection of fuel control switches in its Boeing 787 planes

New Delhi: Air India has started inspection of the fuel control switches in its Boeing 787 planes following the incident of a switch malfunctioning in an aircraft that operated a flight from London Heathrow to Bengaluru on Sunday, sources said.

At present, Air India has 33 Boeing 787s or Dreamliners.

Air India's Senior Vice President for Flight Operations, Manish Uppal, told Boeing 787 pilots that the airline has initiated a fleet-wide re-inspection of the aircraft's fuel control switches, according to sources.

Following the reported defect involving a fuel control switch on one of the B787 aircraft, Uppal said the airline's engineering team has escalated the matter to Boeing for priority evaluation.

"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 had inspected the fuel control switches last year after the fatal crash of a Boeing 787-8 plane in Ahmedabad that killed 260 people.

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.

The functioning of the fuel control switch is in focus following the crash of Air India's Boeing 787-8 aircraft that killed 260 people last June, as the preliminary probe report mentioned that fuel supply was cut off soon after take-off.

Currently, Air India has 33 Boeing 787s -- 26 legacy Boeing 787-8s and 7 Boeing 787-9s, including 6 from Vistara and a custom-made plane that was inducted into its fleet in January.