The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had issued an airworthiness directive for Boeing’s popular 787 Dreamliner widebody airliner after a LATAM Airlines plane flying from Sydney to Auckland in March suddenly nosedived when a flight attendant leaned on a faulty switch in the cockpit.
The bizarre accident injured at least 50 passengers and crew when LATAM flight LA800 suddenly and unexpectedly dropped midflight on March 13 during what was an otherwise routine flight with no turbulence forecast.
As investigators tried to work out what had caused the plane to nosedive so dramatically, attention quickly focused on a switch located at the back of the Captain’s seat which a flight attendant had accidentally leant on while delivering a meal to the pilot.
The switch, unique to Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, allows flight attendants to move the pilot’s seat aft or forward using the seat’s motorized functionality in the event of a pilot medical emergency. The switch has a protective cover which is meant to prevent inadvertent seat movement.
In this case, however, it was discovered that the protective cover was damaged so when the flight attendant leant on the cover it pushed down on the switch and then jammed in place, causing the pilot’s seat to move towards the flight controls.
Unable to stop the seat from moving forward, the Captain hit the flight control which in turn knocked out the auto-pilot and caused the plane to enter a rapid descent.
The situation was only corrected when the First Officer was able to take command of the aircraft but by this point dozens of passengers and crew had already been injured.
Rather than being isolated to just the LATAM aircraft, it turns out that damage to the protective switch cover has been discovered on several other 787 Dreamliners and that other inadvertent seat movement incidents have occurred.
In fact, the last recorded incident reported by the embattled aircraft manufacturer was only in June, despite the fact that it had already sent out a worldwide advisor to Dreamliner operators warning of potential issues with the secondary seat movement switch.
“The FAA has received reports of uncommanded horizontal movement of the Captain’s and First Officer’s seats installed in Boeing Model 787 airplanes.” the new FAA airworthiness directive explains.
“The FAA received the first report in March 2024 indicating that uncommanded movement of the Captain’s seat caused the control column input to disconnect the auto-pilot, resulting in a rapid descent until the First Officer took control of the flight,” the directive continues.
“This incident further resulted in multiple passenger injuries, some of which were serious. Following that incident, the FAA received four additional reports from Boeing of uncommanded horizontal movement of the Captain’s and First Officer’s seats; the most recent occurred in June 2024”.
The FAA says that unless damaged switch covers and rocker switches are fixed, there is the potential for an “inflight up-set from unintended and abrupt flight control inputs, which could result in a rapid descent of the airplane and serious injury to passengers and crew.”
The airworthiness directive is taking effect without a comment period due to the fact that the FAA has determined an unsafe condition exists that needs to be rectified immediately.
It’s estimated that it will cost up to $4,855 to replace each switch that is found to be faulty.
