Fuel switch concerns in Dreamliners raise questions on design, accountability and trust
Aviation safety is not just a process but a moral duty that must be attended to every day so that fliers are not forced to put faith only in the astronomical odds against dying in an air crash.
It will be several months before the final report from the probe into the Ahmedabad crash of an Air India Dreamliner on June 12, 2025, is released. Meanwhile, the question of a glitch in the form of involuntary movement of fuel control switches has cropped up again as a pilot reported such movement in a Dreamliner that flew to London from India.
The DGCA appears to have suggested that crew action may have moved the switch from ‘run’ to ‘cutoff’ position. Calling upon Boeing to circulate the recommended procedure for the operation of the switch to crew members may be part of safety procedures. But there seems to be an admission of belief, involuntary or otherwise, that the manufacturer is always right and that the pilots are the ones who are moving switches.
It should not take a year of probing to know how those switches moved on the ill-fated aircraft out of Ahmedabad so that there could be closure on the event. Manufacturers cannot brush aside the field data that may show that they are not infallible in the matter of ensuring the built-in safety of their aircraft.
Pilots, backed by air traffic controllers, do make mistakes, as we saw most recently in the right wings of two taxiing aircraft brushing each other in Mumbai, which operates one of the country’s busiest airports. But assuming pilot error before thoroughly probing each unusual incident in aviation is an error that must not be allowed to creep in because that would undermine safety, which is the manufacturers’ responsibility first.
The sooner we have the mystery solved of moving fuel switches – which must be pulled up before being pushed to the cutoff position – the better. How trustworthy is an aircraft if unusual movement of the fuel switches takes place. What can be done to control this aspect of flying a sophisticated fly-by-wire flying machine must be explored if the manufacturer is to regain the total trust of passengers and crew.
