2018 FAA advisory warned of Boeing 737 fuel switch failure: Aviation expert on Air India crash

Wreckage showing the tail section of the Air India Boeing 787-8 is pictured in a residential area near the airport in Ahmedabad on June 14, 2025, after the aircraft operating as flight 171 crashed shortly after taking off on June 12.

Aviation expert Captain Ehsan Khalid on Wednesday revealed that a 2018 advisory to the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had warned of a potentially high failure rate in the fuel control switch installed in Boeing 737 jets. The switch, manufactured by Honeywell, is used to control General Electric (GE)-made engines on Boeing aircraft.

“In 2018, it was reported to the FAA that the fuel switch locking mechanism of Boeing 737 aircraft could fail. The failure rate was said to be potentially high,” Captain Khalid told news agency PTI. “But what followed was only an advisory, not a mandatory directive — not from Boeing, not from Honeywell, not from GE.”

VIDEO | PTI Exclusive: Aviation expert Captain Ehsan Khalid says that possibility of fuel switch locking mechanism on Boeing 737 failing was reported to FAA in 2018.

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He says, "In 2018, it was reported to FAA that fuel switch locking mechanism of Boeing 737 aircraft could fail,… pic.twitter.com/1xjQYbHWDV

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) July 16, 2025

Despite the concerns raised in 2018, neither Boeing nor the FAA made the switch replacement or structural modification mandatory. The FAA's communication remained in the form of an advisory, not an Airworthiness Directive (AD), which would have legally required action.

Captain Khalid explained that such advisories leave room for discretion at the national level. “If the advisory was credible enough, then India’s aviation regulator, DGCA, could have issued its own bulletin or mandate. Which, they have done now — but only after the crash.”

The immediate cause of concern stems from the AAIB’s preliminary report, released on Saturday (July 12). The report found that both of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s fuel-control switches on AI-171 moved to the “cutoff” position, leading to fuel starvation and engine shutdown shortly after takeoff.

Critically, the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) captured a chilling exchange between the pilots in the final moments of the flight: One pilot asked the other why he had cut off the fuel, to which the second replied that he had not, the report revealed.

The report did not clarify how or why the switches moved from “run” to “cutoff”, but the event has brought attention to the design and integrity of the fuel control mechanism itself.

UK aviation regulator had also raised concerns in 2024

It’s not just the FAA. The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) also issued a warning on May 15, 2024, regarding a related fuel system flaw on Boeing aircraft. This time, the CAA listed five Boeing aircraft types — 737, 757, 767, 777, and 787 — and ordered operators to review a US FAA airworthiness directive that flagged potential problems with fuel shutoff valve actuators.

The UK directive made it mandatory for airlines to test, inspect, or replace fuel shutoff valve actuators on affected planes and implement daily checks to prevent possible fuel leaks and engine failures.