The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the Indian aviation watchdog, has issued Mandatory Modifications for aircraft/engines/components registered in India based on the Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin which the Federal Aviation Administration issued in December 2018 regarding potential for the disengagement of the fuel control switch feature on a variety of Boeing models including the Boeing 787-8-9-10 aircraft.
On June 12 this year, an Air India Boeing 787-8 aircraft manufactured in 2013 crashed within seconds of taking off from Ahmedabad in the western state of Gujarat. The latest order is being viewed as a fallout of this accident (Preliminary report: AI171 engines shut down within seconds of take-off |).
The DGCA order issued on Monday evening states that it has come to its notice that several operators internationally as well as domestically have initiated inspection of their fleet as required by the FAA order of December 2018.
“In view of the above all airline operators of the affected aircraft are hereby advised to complete the inspection under SAIB of December 2018 no later than July 21, this year,” the DGCA has advised the Indian airlines.
The order came two days after Preliminary report of Air India fatal Boeing 787 crash was released
The DGCA advisory comes less than 48 hours after the Aircraft Accident Investigation Board of India released its preliminary report in the early hours of July 12, exactly a month after the crash of the Air India Ahmedabad to Gatwick flight,0 There were 260 fatalities among whom were all but one of the 242 passengers and crew on the aircraft and some people on the ground were killed.
The preliminary report states that the aircraft achieved the maximum recorded airspeed of 180 Knots IAS at about 08:08:42 UTC, and immediately thereafter, the Engine 1 and Engine 2 fuel cutoff switches transitioned from RUN to CUTOFF position one after another with a time gap of 01 sec. Engines N1 and N2 began to decrease from their take-off values as the fuel supply to the engines was cut off.
The preliminary report adds that in the cockpit voice recording, one of the pilots is heard asking the other why did he cut off fuel. The other pilot responded that he did not do so.
X shows several airlines carrying out these inspections
Since Monday morning, there have been various X messages showing global airlines carrying out checks on their fleet of Boeing 787s (https://x.com/ari_maj/status/1944609064324890725?s=46&t=KXt5ltET8Xus3UPsG3rvNQ).
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