Air India's chief of flight safety suspended by DGCA over lapses in accident prevention
DGCA suspended the chief of flight safety at Air India for a month after finding lapses in accident prevention work.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Thursday suspended Air India's chief of flight safety for a month after finding lapses in accident prevention work carried out by the airline. This comes after the aviation watchdog's team carried out the surveillance of Air India in the areas of internal audit, accident prevention work, and availability of required technical manpower on July 25 and 26.
According to the DGCA, the checks were carried out as per the flight safety manual and requirements of civil aviation.
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"The surveillance found deficiencies in the accident prevention work carried out by the airline and the availability of the requisite technical manpower. Further, it was observed that some of the internal audit/spot checks claimed to be carried out by the airline were done in a perfunctory manner and not as per the regulatory requirements,” the DGCA said in a statement.
It added, “DGCA after reviewing the action taken report submitted by the airline, issued show cause notices to the concerned post holders.”
The aviation regulator has directed the Tata Group-owned airline not to assign any audits, surveillance, or spot checks pertaining to compliance of DGCA to the particular auditor, whose inspections indicate a lack of diligence, it said.
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Air India has been facing the heat from the aviation regulator for the past few months. Recently, the DGCA suspended simulator training activities for A320 pilots at the airline's facility in Hyderabad owing to certain lapses observed during an inspection, reported PTI citing sources.
A senior Air India official had told PTI that “whatever advice has been given by the regulator in its observations, we are looking into it and taking corrective measures.”
The Tata-owned airline has an exclusive Boeing simulator training facility in its Central Training Establishment (CTE) in Hyderabad and Mumbai. While the Mumbai facility is for imparting simulator training to pilots of its wide-body fleet - Boeing 777 and B787 aircraft, the Hyderabad facility is for similar training for pilots of the narrow-body fleet - A320 planes.
