Britain's aviation authority has asked Air India to explain how a Boeing Dreamliner passenger jet which was grounded on arrival in India for safety checks took off from London on Sunday with a possibly faulty fuel switch, a letter shows.
The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), in a letter to the airline dated Tuesday, warned of the possibility of regulatory action against Air India and its Boeing 787 fleet if the airline does not submit a complete response within a week.
Air India said in a statement it had completed a precautionary re-inspection of the switches and found no issues, and would "respond to the UK regulator accordingly".
The CAA said in a statement that it was a standard process for a regulator to request details following "an aircraft incident and is in line with safety assurance procedures".
Fuel switches were at the centre of last year's crash involving an Air India Dreamliner, which killed 260 people in Gujarat state and triggered tighter scrutiny of the airline. The switches regulate the flow of jet fuel into a plane's engines.
Air India said on Monday it had grounded a Boeing Dreamliner after a pilot reported a possible "defect" with the fuel control switch on the plane on landing.
Boeing, which earlier said it was cooperating with Air India on the incident, did not respond to a request for comment.
UK regulator seeks 'detailed' account
The Indian civil aviation watchdog later said that during the engine start in London, the crew observed the fuel control switch did not remain latched on the 'run' position on two occasions, but was stable on a third attempt.
The crew decided to continue on to India and the regulator's checks this week found the switches were functioning fine.
The CAA, however, told Air India that it must provide "a detailed account of all maintenance actions performed to ensure the continued airworthiness of the aircraft and to support its release to service for" Bengaluru.
Root cause analysis sought
The UK watchdog has also sought a "comprehensive root-cause analysis" of the incident and a "preventive action plan" to preclude a recurrence of similar events across Air India's Boeing 787 fleet, said the letter, which was not made public.
Air India in an internal memo on Wednesday said it had also checked the fuel switches on all of its Boeing 787s - which Flightradar24 says total 33 - and "no issues were found".
What happened to Boeing 787-8 aircraft?
A Boeing 787-8 aircraft operating Air India flight AI132 flew from London Heathrow to Bengaluru on February 1.
After landing in Bengaluru, the pilot reported a possible defect in the fuel control switch, a key component that controls fuel flow to the engines, news agency PTI said in a report.
The aircraft was grounded on February 2 for inspections.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has on Thursday said that during engine start in London, the fuel switch did not stay in the ‘run’ position twice and it worked normally in the third attempt. Initial checks showed that the switches were functioning normally.
DGCA added that ‘apparently correct procedure’ was not followed and asked Air India to ensure crews strictly follow operating procedures. The airline has been asked to ensure that the crew follows the right procedures, PTI reported.
About the incident, an Air India spokesperson said the airline completed precautionary re-inspections of the Fuel Control Switch (FCS) across all operational Boeing 787 aircraft in its fleet and that no issues were identified during these checks.
“Air India will respond to the UK regulator accordingly,” the spokesperson said, as per PTI.
A source on Tuesday had said the DGCA is likely to look at various aspects related to the incident, including whether the aircraft VT-ANX could have been grounded at London Heathrow itself rather than operating the flight to Bengaluru, a PTI report stated.