FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said Thursday that the June crash of an Air India flight that killed 260 people does not appear to have been caused by a mechanical problem with the aircraft’s fuel control switches, which have emerged as a major focus in the Indian government’s investigation into the disaster.
“We can say with a high level of confidence it doesn’t appear to be a mechanical issue with the Boeing fuel control unit,” Bedford told reporters at EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, according to Reuters.
He said FAA employees have tested the devices and inspected them on working aircraft.
“We feel very comfortable that this isn’t an issue with inadvertent manipulation of fuel control,” Bedford added.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner involved in the accident, operated as Air India Flight 171, lost altitude shortly after taking off from an airport in Ahmedabad, India, and crashed into the campus of a medical college. All but one of the 242 passengers on the aircraft were killed, and 19 more people were killed on the ground.
A preliminary report released by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) earlier this month found the 787’s fuel control switches, which feed fuel to the engines, were moved from the “Run” to “Cutoff” position, one right after the other. As a result, the engines shut down mid-climb.
The cockpit voice recorder captured one pilot asking the other why he turned off the fuel switches, and the second pilot responded that he did not. The switches were then reversed, and the engines were in the process of coming back online when the aircraft crashed.
The AAIB report referenced a 2018 advisory from the FAA, which encouraged airlines operating Boeing aircraft to inspect the locking mechanism on the fuel switches to ensure they could not be moved by accident. Air India did not follow this guidance, the report stated.
The FAA responded to the report by saying that its 2018 advisory was based on information that fuel control switches were installed with the locking feature disengaged. This does not make the devices themselves unsafe, the agency has emphasized, and on July 11 the FAA sent a continued airworthiness notification to all operators of Boeing aircraft worldwide.
Air India this week completed a check of the fuel switch locks on all the 787s and 777s in its fleet and found no issues.
Editor’s note: This article first appeared on AirlineGeeks.
