Families of Air India crash victims sue Boeing and Honeywell

The families of four passengers killed in the June 12 crash of an Air India Boeing 787 said in a lawsuit that the accident resulted from allegedly faulty fuel switches.

The families of four passengers killed in the June 12 crash of an Air India Boeing 787 said in a lawsuit that the accident resulted from allegedly faulty fuel switches, which the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has said do not appear to have caused the accident that killed 260 people.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday in Delaware Superior Court blames Boeing and Honeywell, which made the switches, for the crash seconds after Flight 171 took off for London from the Indian city of Ahmedabad.

The plaintiffs point to a 2018 FAA advisory that recommended, but did not mandate, that operators of several Boeing models, including the 787, inspect the fuel cutoff switches’ locking mechanism to ensure it could not be accidentally moved.

A preliminary investigation report into the crash by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau said that Air India had not conducted the suggested inspections, and that 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 with on the aircraft as well as engines.”