Boeing Under Fire as South Korea Orders Critical Fuel Switch Inspections Over AI 171 Crash

South Korea is currently preparing to order all airlines in the country operating Boeing aircrafts to examine their fuel switches at the centre of an investigation into a deadly Air India crash which killed 260 people in Ahmedabad, a Reuters report said.

Why The Sudden Scrutiny?

The locks of fuel switches have been under scrutiny since 2018 and this is because an advisory was issued by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and this figured into a preliminary report into last month's crash of Air India's Boeing 787-8 jet.

A spokesperson of the South Korean transport ministry said that these checks are in line with the 2018 advisory from FAA, but there was no timeline that was given for the same.

During the Air India flight crash, these fuel switches had almost simultaneously flipped from run position to cutoff just after takeoff, but the preliminary report did not say how they could have flipped during flight.

The Air India Group started checking the locking mechanism, over the weekend on the fuel switches of its Boeing 787 and 737 fleets and has discovered no problems yet, the report added.

Nearly half of the group's 787s have been inspected and almost all its 737s in inspections are set to be completed in the next day or two.

What Did The 2018 Advisory Say?

The 2018 advisory by FAA recommended but did not mandate, operators of several Boeing models, including the 787, to inspect the locking feature of the fuel of the fuel cutoff switches to ensure they could not be moved accidentally.

Additionally, Boeing and FAA had privately issued notifications to airlines and regulators that the fuel switch locks on Boeing planes were safe and checks were not required.

As per the Air India preliminary report, the airline had not carried out the FAA's suggested inspections as the FAA's 2018 advisory was not a mandate.

But it also added that as per maintenance records the throttle control module, which includes the fuel switches, was replaced in 2019 and 2023 on the plane involved in the crash.

Did Air India Replace These Aircrafts?

Air India had replaced the module on the aircraft in 2019 and 2023 in a planned change after 24,000 flight hours that was not limited to the crashed jet, the report said.

Further, the airline CEO Campbell Wilson in an internal memo said the investigation into the crash was far from over and it was unwise to jump to premature conclusions, following the release of the preliminary report.\

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