Domestic Indian airlines were ordered to carry out inspections of fuel switches on Boeing aircraft in their fleets by the country’s aviation regulator in the wake of last month’s deadly Air India crash in Ahmedabad in western India. File Photo by Hanif Sindh/UP | License Photo
Civil aviation authorities in India instructed domestic airlines to inspect fuel switches on Boeing aircraft in their fleets after the initial findings of an investigation of the Air India Flight 171 crash in June suggested fuel to the engines was shut off during takeoff.
The order was made after a number of Indian and international carriers began conducting voluntary examinations of a locking mechanism that prevents the switches from being accidentally flipped to the cutoff position, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said Monday.
The Indian aviation watchdog’s direction, which is mandatory, came amid swirling speculation surrounding two possible explanations — human error or sabotage — for the seemingly inexplicable disaster that claimed the lives of all but one of the 242 passengers and crew and at least 15 people on the ground.
A part-transcript of the conversation between the pilots contained in Friday’s preliminary report by Indian crash investigators revealed one asking the other why he had moved the fuel switches to “cutoff” from “run” — which the other pilot categorically refutes doing.
The news was the catalyst for speculation that the Boeing 787 Dreamliner lost all power shortly after takeoff because one of the pilots shut off the fuel to both engines, either accidentally or deliberately.
Earlier Monday, the chief executive of Air India warned staff of the airline to refrain from speculating, saying the initial report had found no mechanical or maintenance faults with the aircraft or its engines and that all Air India Boeing 787s had been checked and found to be airworthy.
Airline pilot unions also called for an end to what they called “deeply disturbing speculative narratives.”
The Indian Commercial Pilots’ Association said it was particularly perturbed by “the reckless and unfounded insinuation of pilot suicide.”
“There is absolutely no basis for such a claim at this stage. It is deeply insensitive to the individuals and families involved.”
It added that the pilots had “acted in line with their training and responsibilities under challenging conditions, and the pilots shouldn’t be vilified based on conjecture.”
A third school of thought, that the switches could have somehow been flipped unintentionally or a fault caused them to shut off by themselves, emerged after the preliminary report referenced a 2018 FAA advisory covering “some Boeing models.”
The alert warned that a locking mechanism to prevent the switches from being accidentally flipped may not have been installed correctly. However, it did not mandate that airlines take any action and therefore was not acted upon by all airlines, including Air India.
No malfunction or unintentional flipping of the switches, with different variants of the same switch used across many Boeing models, is even known to have occurred.
Families of the people who were killed in the crash, air India’s worst non-terror related incident, have been calling for answers and want investigators to share more of what they know.
“Justice should be served. Action should be taken against those responsible,” said Ayushi Christian, who lost her husband Lawrence in the June 12 disaster.
South Korea was also in the process of ordering all operators of Boeing aircraft to conduct checks.
South Korea’s transport ministry did not provide a timetable for when airlines were required to complete the checks, but said that they were in line with U.S. Federal Aviation Administration guidance issued in 2018.
