NEW DELHI: Air India on Wednesday said that it has completed the precautionary reinspection of the Fuel Control Switch (FCS) on its entire fleet of 33 Boeing aircraft, and no issues were detected in any of them.
An Air India spokesperson said, “Air India has completed precautionary re-inspections of the FCS across all operational Boeing 787 aircraft in its fleet. No issues were identified during these checks. The inspections were undertaken in an abundance of caution following an observation reported by one of our pilots.”
The pilot of a Boeing 787 aircraft, which flew from London to Bengaluru, had on Feb. 2 reported an issue with the FCS on the plane while taking off. The flight with nearly 250 passengers reached the Kempegowda International Airport safely.
The airline said it acknowledged DGCA’s proactive oversight in conducting independent inspections and giving a clean slate to the switches.
The spokesperson added, “Air India will fully adhere to the regulator’s guidance to circulate the Original Equipment Manufacturer-recommended operating procedures for the operation of the FCS to all crew members.”
A leaked correspondence penned by Head of Flight Operations, Air India, Manish Uppal, to the crew members a day earlier said the reported defect has been escalated to the OEM for priority evaluation.
“In the interim, while we await Boeing’s response, our engineers have initiated precautionary fleet-wide re-inspection of the FCS latch to verify normal operations. To date, no adverse findings have been reported on the aircraft for which this re-inspection is completed."
Uppal had reiterated to the crew to promptly report any defects observed during operations. He also asked them to ensure that all required actions were completed before accepting the aircraft for the journey.