US orders inspections of Boeing 787 planes following midair plunge
Al Jazeera
Federal Aviation Administration orders inspections after mid-flight dive blamed on random movement of pilots’ seats.
Aviation regulators in the United States have ordered airlines to carry out inspections of hundreds of Boeing 787 Dreamliners after a sudden midair dive during a flight in March injured dozens of passengers.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Monday that the captain’s and first officer’s seats on certain 787-7, 787-9 and 787-10 aeroplanes should be inspected “for missing or cracked rocker switch caps and for cracked or nonfunctional switch cover assemblies” within 30 days.
“Operators must also perform any necessary corrective actions,” the FAA said in a statement.
The FAA directive affects 158 US-registered aeroplanes and 737 aeroplanes worldwide, the regulator said.
The airworthiness directive (AD) comes after Chile’s aviation authority said earlier this year that preliminary inquiries into the March 11 incident showed that the captain’s seat experienced an “involuntary movement forward” during the flight.
