The families of four passengers who died in the Air India crash in June have sued the aerospace manufacturers Boeing and Honeywell, blaming negligence and a faulty fuel cutoff switch for the disaster that killed 260 people.
Air India flight 171 crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad en route to London on 12 June.
In a complaint filed on Tuesday in Delaware superior court, the plaintiffs said the locking mechanism for the switch on the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner could be turned off inadvertently, causing a loss of fuel supply and loss of thrust needed for takeoff.
They said Boeing and Honeywell, which respectively installed and manufactured the switch, knew about that risk, especially after the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) cautioned in 2018 about disengaged locking mechanisms on several Boeing aircraft.