NEW DELHI: 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.
