‘Mishandling of emergency door in aircraft lone incident in 5 years’

The three Rajya Sabha members also sought to know whether government has issued any orders to aircrafts to restructure their emergency doors in case they are prone to be mishandled by passengers

New Delhi: The recent mishandling of an aircraft’s emergency door, involving an Indigo flight, was the only such incident reported in the last five years, the ministry of civil aviation informed Parliament on Monday.

The information came in response to a question in the Rajya Sabha by Trinamool Congress (TMC) lawmaker Mohammed Nadimul Haque and Communist Party of India (Marxist) members Elamaram Kareem and John Brittas, who sought the details of the incident that took place on the Chennai-Trichy Indigo flight in December last year. (HT)

The information came in response to a question in the Rajya Sabha by Trinamool Congress (TMC) lawmaker Mohammed Nadimul Haque and Communist Party of India (Marxist) members Elamaram Kareem and John Brittas, who sought the details of the incident that took place on the Chennai-Trichy Indigo flight in December last year. They also sought to know the details of the person involved in the incident.

“During the last five years, one incident has come to notice of DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) regarding opening of emergency exit door, while the aircraft was on ground. This was on Indigo flight 6E7339, Chennai to Trichy on 10 December, 2022,” Union minister of state (MoS) for civil aviation Gen VK Singh (retired) said in a written reply on Monday. “The flight departed only after completing all the safety checks/ protocols.”

While the ministry did not reveal the name of the person involved in the incident, the government last month confirmed it was Tejasvi Surya, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Lok Sabha MP from Bengaluru South, who opened the aircraft emergency door “by mistake”.

The three Rajya Sabha members also sought to know whether government has issued any orders to aircrafts to restructure their emergency doors in case they are prone to be mishandled by passengers. To this, MoS Singh replied: “No such order has been issued by DGCA to air operators to restructure their emergency doors.”

On a question seeking details of punishments in case passengers open the emergency door of an aircraft without any such instruction being given by the crew, MoS Singh said the DGCA has issued civil aviation requirements (CAR). “Whenever an airline receives a complaint of unruly behavior from the pilot-incommand, the incident is referred by the airlines to an ‘Internal Committee’ constituted by them as per provisions of the CAR,” the minister added.

While replying to a separate query raised by Brittas over the rise of untoward incidents in air travel, Singh said, “A total of 63 passengers have been placed in ‘No Fly List’ for last one year, as recommended by the airline’s Internal Committee, constituted in accordance with CAR’s ‘Handling of unruly/disruptive passengers’. These include two incidents of urinating that have come to the notice of DGCA in the last one year.”

The minister, however, noted that the majority of the people in the “No Fly List” were either found in violation of not wearing masks or disobeying instructions of the crew members.