By Lisa Barrington
Seoul (Reuters) -South Korea is preparing for ordering all airlines in the country that exploit Boeing Jets to investigate fuel switches in the focus of a study of a deadly Air India -Crash that killed 260 people.
Fuel switch locks were examined after an indication of an advice from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in a provisional report of the crash of the Crash of Air India's Boeing 787-8 Jet.
A spokesperson for the South Korean Ministry of Transport said that the checks were in line with a 2018 advice from the FAA, but gave no timeline for inspections.
Boeing referred the questions from Reuters to the FAA, who was not immediately available to comment outside of regular hours.
In the crash of Air India, the switches were turned almost simultaneously from the Run position to close just after taking off, but the provisional report did not say how they could have been reversed during the flight to that position.
The FAA advice of 2018 recommended, but did not order operators of different Boeing models, including the 787, to inspect the locking function of the switches of the fuel abnormality to ensure that they could not be moved by accident.
On Sunday, with reference to a document and sources, Reuters reported that the flat maker and the FAA had issued private reports to airlines and regulators that the fuel switch on Boeing aircraft were safe and checks were not required.
The provisional report from Air India said that the airline had not carried out the proposed inspections of the FAA, because the advice of the FAA 2018 was not a mandate.
But it also said that maintenance records showed that the gas control module, which includes the fuel switches, was replaced in 2019 and 2023 on the plane involved in the crash.
In an internal memo on Monday, the CEO of the airline, Campbell Wilson, said that the investigation into the crash was far from over and that it was unwise to draw premature conclusions after the release of the provisional report.
(Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Additional reporting and writing by Abhijith Ganapavaram; Edit by Jamie Freed and Clarence Fernandez)
