By Lisa Barrington
SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea’s transport ministry is preparing to order all airlines in the country that operate Boeing jets to examine fuel switches in accordance with a 2018 advisory from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, the ministry’s foreign media spokesperson said on Monday.
The spokesperson did not give a timeline for the checks. Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fuel switch locks have come under scrutiny after a preliminary report into the crash of an Air India’s Boeing 787-8 jet that killed 260 people last month mentioned a 2018 advisory from the FAA.
The FAA advisory recommended, but did not mandate, operators of several Boeing models, including the 787, to inspect the locking feature of the fuel cutoff switches to ensure they could not be moved accidentally.
Reuters reported on Sunday, citing a document and sources, that the planemaker and the FAA have privately issued notifications to airlines and regulators that the fuel switch locks on Boeing planes are safe and checks are not required.
The Air India preliminary report said the airline had not carried out the FAA’s suggested inspections as the FAA’s 2018 advisory was not a mandate. But it also said maintenance records showed that the throttle control module, which includes the fuel switches, was replaced in 2019 and 2023 on the plane involved in the crash.
(Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Writing by Abhijith Ganapavaram; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Jamie Freed)
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