South Korea is preparing to order all the airlines of the country that operate Boeing aircraft that examine the fuel switches, in the center of an investigation into a deadly accident of Air India that killed 260 people.
The fuel switches locks have been scrutinized after a 2018 notice of the Federal Aviation Administration of the US (FAA) appeared in a preliminary report on the Air Indian Boeing 787-8 plane accident last month.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Transportation of South Korea said the controls were in line with a 2018 FAA notice, but did not give a schedule for them.
Boeing sent Reuters’ questions to FAA, which was not immediately available to comment outside the usual schedule.
In the Air India accident, the switches had almost simultaneously passed from the marching position to the cutting position just after takeoff, but the preliminary report did not say how they could have turned during the flight.
During the weekend, Air India Group began reviewing the blocking mechanism in the fuel switches of its Boeing 787 and 737 fleets and has not yet discovered problems, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Around half of the 787 of the group have been inspected and almost all of its 737, in inspections scheduled to complete in one or two days, added the source, which spoke about anonymity.
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South Korea will order airlines to check the Boeing and Air India fuel switches inspect their fleet
In a statement, the Japanese Jal said that security was her main priority, and added: “We are closely monitoring the investigation into the incident and we will implement the necessary inspections based on their findings.”
In its 2018 notice, the FAA recommended, but did not force the operators of several Boeing models, including 787, to inspect the locking function of fuel cutting switches to ensure that they could not accidentally move.
On Sunday, citing a document and sources, Reuters reported that the Aircraft and FAA had issued private notifications to the airlines and the regulators that the locks of the fuel switches in the Boeing aircraft were safe and controls were not required.
Air India preliminary report said the airline had not carried out the inspections suggested by the FAA since the 2018 FAA notice was not a mandate.
But he also said that maintenance records showed that the accelerator control module, which includes fuel switches, was replaced in 2019 and 2023 on the plane involved in the accident.
Air India replaced the module in the aircraft in 2019 and 2023 in a planned change after 24,000 flight hours that was not limited to the star plane, said the source familiar with the matter.
In an internal memorandum on Monday, the executive director of the airline, Campbell Wilson, said that the investigation into the accident was far from finishing and that it was not prudent to draw premature conclusions, after the publication of the preliminary report.
With Reuters information.
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