South Korea preparing to order airlines to check fuel switches on Boeing jets

By Lisa Barrington

SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea is preparing to bid each airlines successful the state that run Boeing jets to analyse substance switches successful the absorption of an probe of a deadly Air India clang that killed 260 people.

Fuel power locks person travel nether scrutiny aft a notation of a 2018 advisory from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) successful a preliminary study into past month's clang of Air India's Boeing 787-8 jet.

A spokesperson for the South Korean transport ministry said the checks were successful enactment with a 2018 advisory from the FAA, but did not springiness a timeline for inspections.

Boeing referred Reuters' questions to the FAA, which was not instantly disposable to remark extracurricular regular hours.

In the Air India crash, the switches had astir simultaneously flipped from tally presumption to cutoff conscionable aft takeoff, but the preliminary study did not accidental however they could person flipped to that presumption during flight.

The 2018 FAA advisory recommended, but did not mandate, operators of respective Boeing models, including the 787, to inspect the locking diagnostic of the substance cutoff switches to guarantee they could not beryllium moved accidentally.

On Sunday, citing a papers and sources, Reuters reported that the planemaker and the FAA had privately issued notifications to airlines and regulators that the substance power locks connected Boeing planes were harmless and checks were not required.

The Air India preliminary study said the hose had not carried retired the FAA's suggested inspections arsenic the FAA's 2018 advisory was not a mandate.

But it besides said attraction records showed that the throttle power module, which includes the substance switches, was replaced successful 2019 and 2023 connected the level progressive successful the crash.

In an interior memo connected Monday, the airline's CEO, Campbell Wilson, said the probe into the clang was acold from implicit and it was unwise to leap to premature conclusions, pursuing the merchandise of the preliminary report.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Additional reporting and penning by Abhijith Ganapavaram; Editing by Jamie Freed and Clarence Fernandez)