Posts about: "FAA" [Posts: 108 Pages: 6]

If you think everything is said...

Breaking News:
On Jul 14th 2025 India's DGCA instructed airlines to check the fuel switches on the Boeing 787 and Boeing 737 aircraft as used by Air India Group, Indigo and Spicejet for possible disengagement of the fuel control switch locking feature according to the SAIB released by the FAA on Dec 17th 2018. The checks have to be completed by Jul 21st 2025.

Source: Avherald.com

Interesting.

FWIW I don't think everything is said, and further elements may be uncovered - I just think the investigators have laid out pretty clearly areas they think are (and are not) likely causes when you read between the lines.

Incidentally the above smacks of optics to me following it being shared that air India had not performed these checks, and the associated speculation of cause, but that's just a theory 😉

This also could be in the sake of thoroughness from the governing body, and frankly its low intrusiveness to the operation and can at least rule out random theorized possibilities. I would probably advise the same.

Realize this is a pilots forum, and its always easier to blame the engineers (me), but I'm surprised at the amount of people grasping at (at least what I think) straws to try and make this not a case of pilot error (either intentional or unintentional). I get lots of parts frequently break and pilots do frequently see things on MEL etc. I know our partner airline engineering teams would love to see increased reliability of certain components, but the certification scrutiny of flight critical items is very intense including isolation from each other.

The likelihood of two flight critical components which are isolated from each other failing instantaneously is so small its basically impossible. Especially when you consider they also turn back on 10 secs later.

A bit late to check them now, but I don't expect anything will be found on the 787s. They are just doing this to cover themselves, I think.

Reuters, July 14 2025
Amid Air India probe, US FAA, Boeing notify fuel switch locks are safe, document, sources say

WASHINGTON/NEW DELHI/MONTREAL, July 13 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing (BA.N), have privately issued notifications that the fuel switch locks on Boeing planes are safe, a document seen by Reuters showed and four sources with knowledge of the matter said.

The FAA's Continued Airworthiness Notification on July 11 came after a preliminary report into Air India's Boeing 787-8 crash, which killed 260 people last month, raised questions over engine fuel cutoff switches.

The FAA's notification to Civil Aviation Authorities, seen by Reuters, said: "although the fuel control switch design, including the locking feature, is similar on various Boeing airplane models, the FAA does not consider this issue to be an unsafe condition that would warrant an Airworthiness Directive on any Boeing airplane models, including the Model 787."

When asked for comment, the FAA said it did not have anything to add beyond the notification.

Boeing also referred to the FAA notification in a Multi-Operator-Message sent to the airlines in the past few days, which said the planemaker is not recommending any action, two of the sources with direct knowledge said.

When asked for comment, Boeing referred Reuters' questions to the FAA.

The preliminary investigation report into the crash by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), referred to a 2018 FAA advisory, which 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 it could not be moved accidentally.

The report said Air India had said it had not carried out the FAA's suggested inspections as the FAA 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.

The report noted "all applicable airworthiness directives and alert service bulletins were complied on the aircraft as well as engines."

ALPA India, which represents Indian pilots at the Montreal-based International Federation of Air Line Pilots\x92 Associations, in a statement on Saturday rejected the presumption of pilot error and called for a "fair, fact-based inquiry."

"The pilots body must now be made part of the probe, at least as observers," ALPA India President Sam Thomas told Reuters on Sunday.

ALPA India, in a letter posted on X, said the preliminary investigation report referred to the 2018 FAA advisory "concerning the fuel control switch gates, which indicates a potential equipment malfunction."

In the flights final moments, one pilot was heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he cut off the fuel. "The other pilot responded that he did not do so," the report said.

It said fuel switches had almost simultaneously flipped from run to cutoff just after takeoff. The report did not say how the switches could have flipped during the flight.

Two U.S. safety experts said on Saturday they backed ALPA India's request to be observers in the probe, but said the investigation report did not suggest a bias toward pilot error.

John Cox, a pilot and former ALPA U.S. representative, said AAIB's report seemed objective and fair.

bluemic

How\x92s the water in that shark infested sea?

When I read that on the previous sector the aircraft had a stab issue written up I wondered the same thing. It\x92s a fanciful theory but they all are. I\x92m leaning towards the action slip \x93brain fart\x94 although why might always be the subject of speculation. Assuming that the captain did place the fuel control switches to cutoff just after rotation then whatever the explanation will most likely defy logic.

Incidentally this tragic accident wasn\x92t discussed that much in my company even though it operates the 787. I think there\x92s a realisation that it would be pointless speculation until there is the final report. What was noticeable early on is that we\x92re no maintenance actions mandated by Boeing, GE, the FAA etc. Equally nothing from a flight ops perspective.

They are usually such nice sharks.

What is known so far certainly does defy logic but I struggle with the brain fart idea. Firstly (noting that the initial report does not mention positive rate or gear up calls) I can’t see any action cue for the PM to do anything at all at the time the switches were moved to CUTOFF. If some sort of random disorientation action is postulated then you’d have to ask why did it occur at that critical moment and not 30 seconds earlier or 30 seconds later?

Secondly, I can’t be the only one who has operated a control and then perceived an unexpected set of visual, audible or physical responses from something unrelated and instantly thought WTF have I just done followed by an immediate re-check of that action? Although the initial report is notable for what it does not say I can’t see the flat denial of any action is what would be expected given the plethora of cues in that cockpit following the operation of the switches.

Quote:

Originally Posted by YYZjim

The preliminary report narrows things down a lot but not as much as it could have done. The report will have been approved by several people. What we see is their consensus. Why did they choose this version?

I agree that the Preliminary Report will have been a very carefully chosen synopsis, but I don't think it precludes a system behaviour that might or might not even be categorised as either an electrical or mechanical malfunction, as such.

Consider that the Preliminary Report only references the CVR contents to indicate one crew querying why he (the other) cutoff, and the other denying it. Clearly very pertinent data to this investigation, so I'm not ruling out both of the crew being sincere, until I understand the aircraft system better.

If the cutoffs weren't triggered by the crew moving the switches, then the most likely thing was that both FADECs encountered a situation that invoked cutoff, practically at the same moment. That might suggest that the data from independent Run/Cutoff switches via independent poles that possibly route via a PIP or PIPs to various RDCs and in turn the CCS (which means these paths have a common mode) resulted in data to both FADECs "failing" in a critical manner simultaneously.

The only CCS vulnerability I'm aware of is what happens if the CCS is kept powered for 51 days, shortly after which, the Time Manager data integrity for ARINC 664 messages is compromised, possibly only considered critical n conjunction with a CDN Switch failure. AD 2020-06-14 therefore requires a maintenance action of cycling the CCS power at least once every 25 days.

Two such omitted, or incorrectly executed maintenance actions in a row would have to happen for that known issue to be relevant. Perhaps there is some other input in the CCS system that influences both lanes of data to the FADECs for the Cutoff to be triggered, but I'm not aware of such.

If the data to both FADECs became good again around the same time (perhaps no longer Stale Data, or an alternative source selected, or other mechanism), and given the unavailability of APU power at this point, might Engine 1 restart be initiated first, and might Engine 2 restart be triggered 4 seconds later by the FADECs? Is that possible without the crew cycling the switches?

Regarding AD 2020-06-14, which was approved quickly, Boeing subsequently offered revised wording, which changed "may" to "will", see FAA Docket 2020-0205-0004, but as it did not alter the maintenance action, it was not adopted. A fuller description of possible consequences was in FAA Docket 2020-0205-0001_content, but it was quite wide ranging, and didn't attempt to characterise specific aircraft systems behaviour.

For anyone wanting more information on the CCS, in the context of that Airworthiness Directive, I recommend reading A Reverse Engineer’s Perspective on the Boeing 787 ‘51 days’ Airworthiness Directive at IOActive.

As a non-professional pilot, please accept that my knowledge of much beyond the CCS is patchy, but I welcome this scenario being critiqued.

Thank you for your time, and I'm just donning my hard hat and flack jacket.

Media in India are massively spreading disinformation. They mention a May 2025 CAA safety notice (based on 2015 FAA AD) on the fuel valve actuator but mention in the headline the fuel control switch. Two totally different parts of the aircraft. Seems to me coordinated damage control .
https://feitoffake.wordpress.com/202...trol-switches/

Accusing media reports of deliberately coordinating damage control is a bit far fetched

Even away from this subject we can all of us see news reports that seem to plagiarise each other, then a new angle is thought of, and they rush to copy each other again

Someone speculates on a small point, someone else slightly misreads emphasis, the word reportedly is introduced into later copyist reports, as if there was somewhere beforehand some original authority, and gradually a guess can start to assume the proportions of fact.

Same sort of things trying to happen in this thread, even with plenty of folks here having more knowledge and experience than overall standard of press reports

Attention, Wall of Text incoming. Take appropriate precautions and fasten your seatbelts!

It is a bit difficult to not appear to use statistics in this fashion when trying to refute people using made up numbers and stories as argument.

If you had read the articles you quoted you might have realized that the basis for these "media reports" is a single individual who "heard from some Air India pilots". The supposed source wouldn't even have any way to actually know about the claimed information. Unless you want to elevate the Company Rumor Mill to hard evidence standard. This stands against:

Can we please stick to the actual facts, like za9ra22, and not spread baseless rumors that are self contradictory to begin with?

I find this a particularly concerning statement coming from someone who claims to be a pilot. Things like "Action Slip" and "Mental Load" should have been covered extensively in any CRM related education. If you think you are exempt from that kind of failure you are rejecting some very costly lessons learned over the last 50 years of accident investigation.

There have been many accidents where unindicated or even counter indicated action was taken by one or more pilots involved. As discussed in the first and second thread extensively many pilots could report incidents where they observed someone retracting flaps instead of gear. There have been major fatal accidents with pilots shutting down healthy engines instead of surging or burning ones. There's good reason the 787 has extensive takeoff configuration warnings, because we have had accidents and incidents with unsafe configurations taken to takeoff, beyond and sometimes even into a crash. Humans make mistakes. It is the goal of Safety Culture to prevent those mistakes from causing harm.

It was certainly mentioned. I'd not say it was discussed in any big way. Someone mentioned that for Embraer this is indeed the default, I haven't really found anything beyond that, despite considering it a worthwhile train of thought and possible recommendation as a result of this investigation.

This is a topic of actual research: https://www.pmhc.org/research
Currently 12.6% of pilots meet the medical threshold for depression, with a slight but below average difference between males (12.8%) and females (11.4%), with 4.1% of all pilots experiencing recent suicidal thoughts. https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/...940-016-0200-6

It should be noted that the utilized test (PHQ-9) is considered insufficient to assess suicide risk. Depending on scoring these values could be about average, or significantly below average. Based on their wording I would expect the latter, because their methodology does not specify severity.*1 Results of 0-4 points suggest no intervention necessary, 5-9 (classified as mild) simply suggest retaking the test after a few weeks. Research shows that for the general public Major Depressive Episodes have a prevalence of ~5-10%, with the prevalence of minor depression being less studied but significantly higher than major depression. There is also significant symptomatic overlap of mild depression with stress related conditions such as "Burnout" (if you know, please don't, this conversation is already complex enough without bringing that in). Considering the prevalence of stress in the industry I am actually surprised the numbers here are not higher. The lesser delta between males and females could be indicative of just such an issue, meaning that based on the data available the number of pilots actually suffering from depression could be less than even the comparably low number reported here. The actual suicide risk is usually orders of magnitude below even that but not easily covered in this data context due to the test used.

Cognitive impact is highly variable depending on the individual, actual symptoms and severity. It would be wrong to assess that 12.6% of pilots are a risk factor from this data. Quite the opposite, in fact. After the Germanwings crash the topic was discussed and has reached the awareness threshold for many. Mild cases usually require little to no intervention beyond raising awareness and helping the brain fix its chemistry through positive reinforcement. This can be as simple as taking PTO, reducing work hours, or focusing on social or physical activities. In the past 10 years these kinds of low impact measures have been made more readily available, most notably during the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting turmoil.

Further political activity has lead to some positive action as well. I already mentioned the recent success of the Pilot Mental Health Campaign getting legislation through Congress for improvements of the outdated FAA guidelines on mental health in an earlier post. Similar efforts are underway globally, be that internal review within regulatory bodies, or political movements.

Keeping what I wrote previously in mind I would still caution against extrapolating your personal experiences too far. Having family in the field and having volunteered myself I can certainly relate, albeit with far fewer and less impactful personal experiences. The research is obviously lagging and we haven't really understood the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic generally, let alone in all its intricacies. There is indeed an observable global trend. Some correlation has been shown to climate anxiety, but other factors like the deteriorating condition of international relations as well as a global rise in movements against individual rights are obvious sources for this trend as well.
This is certainly a challenge for healthcare everywhere, but I do not consider the data available to be majorly applicable in the context of aviation over the already very current research closer to the industry and GA. The positive impact of what has been done and is being done is highly likely to outperform whatever global mechanism is at work here. It's certainly a very important field of study, but based on the data I would still consider the industry and regulators as a global whole to be on a positive path.

We can certainly discuss this topic further, but I would not currently see it as likely to be causal in this particular case.

Overall I am still not convinced we are looking at an individuals mental health crisis in this case. I have already detailed the massive differences to all known or suspected cases of pilot suicide at least twice. There is no evidence of mental health issues for the Captain or the FO. There is certainly a strong indication for a human factors cause to this accident. And as mentioned above I find the idea of improving the safety of the Fuel Cutoff Switches a worthwhile topic to discuss. No single action, and I see these two switches as a single action just as much as operating both thrust levers, should be able to cause a major accident. I find it perfectly reasonable to require the Throttle Levers be at idle for the Cutoff Switches to work, and in case of an incorrect setting some sort of alert would be appropriate.

*EDIT*
*1: I missed this in my original readthrough, the cutoff is sensibly set to 10, starting with moderate depression. I'd have to look into the classification scheme but from memory both mild and moderate depression fall into the same category as relevant for the following statements.

Please explain.

Fact is both fuel cutoff switches moved to the cutoff position three seconds after the wheels left the runway. While the speed was 180 knots. Nothing indicates a problem with the thrust of the engines.
So explain why one of the pilots , a ghost, an iPad set *both* switches to cutoff just after liftoff while the aircraft had a normal speed and no indications of a problem.
Mind there is no issue with those switches. The FAA SAIB was for the Boeing 737
https://feitoffake.wordpress.com/202...787-explained/

There is just one explanation: one of the pilots deliberately set both switches to cutoff.

Potential issue with the locking feature of fuel control switches of the Boeing 787 is a * red herring*. There is no such issue. There was an issue on some Boeing 737 aircraft. The FAA requested operators of other Boeing made aircraft to check if their aircraft had switches with a similar issue. No reports of such issue are known.
See https://feitoffake.wordpress.com/202...787-explained/

So your scenario is impossible.

If you look closely to the photo you will notice this is of a Boeing 737!
The Boeing 737 has the word IDLE on top of the switches, where the B787 has to word RUN on top.
Again read this https://feitoffake.wordpress.com/202...787-explained/

The fact is the switches on a Boeing 787 has a different part number than those of the B737. There is no replacement part for the B787.
The FAA SAIB does not mention to operators that the switches on a B787 needs to be changed.
The problem was on the Boeing 737 * only*

So your point is not valid. It is *impossible* these two switches were moved because of a malfunction of the locking mechanism.

You might want to carefully read the complete SAIB. The FAA wanted to make sure the issue on some of the B737 switches does not exist on other Boeing made aircraft.
It is here. https://feitoffake.wordpress.com/202...787-explained/

I don't think it's me who is having trouble reading the SAIB.

It calls for the switches on any of the types mentioned to be replaced if found defective, and for the older type of switches on the 737 to be replaced whether defective or not.

And just to be clear the switch fitted to the 787 is NOT that same part as used on the 737. It is a newer design that is visually similar, but CANNOT be installed 'incorrectly'.

- GY

The SAIB from the FAA literally states the opposite to what you are stating.

It goes on to list models including 787-8, -9 and -10

https://ad.easa.europa.eu/blob/NM-18...SIB_NM-18-33_1

There were no \x93flaws\x94 in the switches themselves. The original SAIB came about because some switches on 737s were found to be installed incorrectly. When the switches were installed incorrectly they would not hold in the RUN position and would immediately snap back into CUTOFF. The failure mode was obvious and would be immediately recognized that the installation was incorrect.

These same switches are used on about 7,000 aircraft. A new part (766AT614-3D) with a new locking mechanism that could not be installed incorrectly was made for the 737.

The 787 uses an entirely different part number (4TL837‑3D). 1,200 787s with 30 million flight hours and 5 million departures. Not one instance of one, let alone two switches not working as designed.

- GY

There is a CMR on the 787 to remove and do an inspection of the thrust lever mechanisms on a periodic basis - I don't know (or at least remember) the interval, but I'd expect it to be in the 20,000-30,000 hr. range.
This is related to the FAA preoccupation with Uncontrollable High Thrust and the potential for a mechanical failure in the thrust lever mechanism to cause UHT.

As previously explained, the fuel control switches are a 'break before make' design - with a nominal gap between the two states of about 50ms.

Dani, the reason your posts regarding nearly simultaneous switch failures keep getting deleted is that this exact scenario has been repeatedly raised in the three Air India accident threads - and then thoroughly discounted and dismissed by people who - unlike you - are actual experts on the subject and/or pilots who have regularly used them. That your latest attempt to resurrect this hugely improbable scenario has remained and resulted in another 4 or 5 pages of hamster wheel discussion suggests to me that the mods have simply given up on this thread...