The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) concluded that there was no malfunction in the grounded Boeing Dreamliner and asked Air India to train its pilots in procedures for using the fuel control switches on the wide-body aircraft.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the regulator said the fuel switch problem reported on the Air India Boeing 787-8 was not caused by a mechanical fault but by mishandling. The report does not directly blame the pilots or the crew.
Air India grounded the London-Bengaluru Dreamliner after the pilot raised possible faults with the fuel control switches. The plane landed in Bengaluru on Monday.
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Fuel control switches are critical cockpit components that pilots use to control the flow of fuel to aircraft engines. Any abnormality in the switch is considered a critical safety issue and requires immediate technical assessment by both the airline and the aircraft manufacturer.
Fuel switches were at the center of last year’s Air India Dreamliner crash that killed 260 people in Gujarat, prompting tighter scrutiny of the airline.
“Both the left and right switches were checked and found satisfactory… When full power was applied in parallel with the base plate, the switch remained secure,” the DGCA statement said. “However, applying an external force in the wrong direction caused the switch to easily move from on to off due to the angled base plate allowing it to slip when pressed incorrectly by a finger or thumb.”
The DGCA said the airline had been “advised to circulate to crew members the procedure recommended by Boeing for operating the fuel cut-off switch”.
Air India has not yet responded to the DGCA’s findings.
Lingering doubts
However, experts are not convinced by the DGCA’s explanation.
“The ‘external force’ mentioned in the DGCA statement seems to imply crew action as the DGCA states that the switch would not have moved from start to abort unless an external force was applied in the wrong direction,” said Sanjay Lazar, an aviation expert and CEO of Avialaz Consulting, a Pune-based aviation safety consultancy.
“Given that there is no one else in the cockpit near these switches in these flight situations, the wording seems to indicate that the switch movement in this case (AI-132 LHR-BLR) was caused by improper application of external force by the flight crew,” Lazar said.
Mark D. Martin, an aviation consultant and managing director of Gurugram-based Martin Consulting, said he thought the DGCA was downplaying the “seriousness of the defects”.
“The fuel switch must lock and remain locked, regardless of any unintentional external force from any direction, position or angle. This goes against the very idea of a mechanical lock. Any and all external force should not allow the switch to move from on to off,” he said. “The DGCA should have ordered an immediate comprehensive inspection of all Boeing 787 fuel switches to detect and verify the anomaly before coming up with a statement.”
“The implications I see from this is that pilots and equivalent regulators around the world will not accept the DGCA’s position and in turn will take arbitrary steps not to fly if no proper action on the switch is re-initiated,” added Martin.
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CS Randhawa, president of the Federation of Indian Pilots, said the airline pilot should have actually raised the issue at Heathrow, rather than Bengaluru. “The problem with a possible fuel switch failure should have been reported at Heathrow/London itself, not Bengaluru,” he said. “At least the pilot did the right thing in raising the issue. As a precautionary measure, the DGCA should also order a thorough inspection of the Boeing fleet concerned.”
The DGCA did not respond to Mint’s email queries.
Airline event
Earlier in the day, Air India had asked Boeing for help to prioritize problems with the grounded Dreamliner jet.
The Tata-backed airline flagged a potential fault in the fuel control switch on one of its Boeing 787s, the Dreamliner, and asked the US aircraft maker for a priority review, according to internal communications seen by Mint.
In a letter to Boeing 787 pilots on February 3, Manish Uppal, Air India’s senior vice president of flight operations, said the airline’s technical team had reported an issue with the fuel control switch latch and had initiated a fleet-wide re-inspection of the component as a precautionary measure.
“Following a reported malfunction involving a fuel control switch on one of our B787 aircraft, engineering has escalated the matter to Boeing for priority consideration,” the letter said.
The letter mentioned that while Air India awaits Boeing’s response, the company’s engineers “out of an abundance of caution” have begun a fleet-wide preventive check of the switch latch.
“To date, no adverse findings have been reported on the aircraft for which this re-inspection has been completed,” it said.
Crew members were asked to “immediately report” any defects observed during operations and to ensure that all required activities were completed before the aircraft was taken over.
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The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is a key aircraft category for Air India’s long-haul flights. The airline has 33 Dreamliners in its fleet. The last Dreamliner was received in January 2026.
Air India, along with its low-cost carrier Air India Express (AIX), has a fleet size of 297 aircraft comprising Boeing and Airbus models.
Boeing said it supports Air India. “We are in touch with Air India and support their review of the matter,” the aircraft maker said in a statement.