India orders airlines to check fuel switches on Boeing jets

This handout photograph, taken and posted on the X (formerly Twitter) account of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) on June 12, 2025, shows the back of an Air India plane after it crashed in a residential area near the airport in Ahmedabad. (CISF/AFP/File)
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Updated 15 July 2025
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India orders airlines to check fuel switches on Boeing jets

  • Crash probe reveals cockpit confusion over fuel cut-off, safety checks ordered on multiple aircraft models
  • Deadline set for inspections as regulators respond to early findings from deadly June 12 Air India Boeing crash

NEW DELHI: India has ordered its airlines to examine fuel switches on several Boeing models after they came under scrutiny following last month’s crash of an Air India jet which killed 260 people.

A preliminary report, issued Saturday by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, found that the switches had flipped from run position to cutoff shortly after takeoff.

The report did not offer any conclusions or apportion blame for the June 12 disaster, but indicated that one pilot asked the other why he cut off fuel, and the second pilot responded that he had not.

India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) issued the order Monday to investigate the locking feature on the fuel control switches of several Boeing models including 787s and 737s.

The order came after Boeing notified operators that the fuel switch locks on its jets were safe.

But it was in line with a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB) issued by the US Federal Aviation Administration, which recommended inspection of the locks to ensure they could not be moved accidentally.

Several Indian and international airlines have already begun their own inspections of fuel switches.

“It has come to the notice of DGCA, that several operators — internationally as well as domestic — have initiated inspection on their aircraft fleet as per the SAIB,” DGCA said in a statement.

In view of the SAIB, all airline operators of the affected aircraft must complete the inspection by July 21, it added.

The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner was headed from Ahmedabad in western India to London when it crashed, killing all but one of the 242 people on board as well as 19 people on the ground.

In a letter to employees on Monday, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said the investigation into the crash was ongoing and it would be unwise to jump to “premature conclusions.”


Hundreds of migrants, including Pakistanis, land in Greece after search operation at sea

Updated 19 December 2025
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Hundreds of migrants, including Pakistanis, land in Greece after search operation at sea

  • Rescued migrants were taken to a temporary facility on Crete after reaching the port of Agia Galini
  • Greece has made deportations of rejected asylum seekers a priority under its migration policy

ATHENS: Greece’s Coast Guard rescued about 540 migrants from a fishing boat off ​Europe’s southernmost island of Gavdos on Friday, one of the biggest groups to reach the country in recent months.

The migrants were found during a Greek search operation some 16 nautical miles (29.6 km) off Gavdos, a Coast Guard statement said. They are all well and are being taken ‌to a ‌temporary facility on the nearby ‌island ⁠of ​Crete after ‌reaching the port of Agia Galini, a Coast Guard official said, adding most of the migrants were men from Bangladesh, Egypt and Pakistan.

In a separate incident on Thursday, the EU’s border agency Frontex rescued 65 men and five women from two ⁠migrant boats in distress off Gavdos, the Greek Coast Guard ‌said.

Greece was on the front ‍line of a 2015-16 ‍migration crisis when more than a million people ‍from the Middle East and Africa landed on its shores before moving on to other European countries, mainly Germany.

Flows have ebbed since then, but both Crete ​and Gavdos — the two Mediterranean islands nearest to the African coast — have seen a steep rise ⁠in migrant boats, mainly from Libya, reaching their shores over the past year and deadly accidents remain common along that route.

Greece, Cyprus, Spain and Italy will be eligible for help in dealing with migratory pressures under a new EU mechanism when the bloc’s pact on migration and asylum enters into force in mid-2026.

The center-right government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said deportation of rejected asylum ‌seekers will be a priority.