Summary
- Air India’s Chief of Flight Safety has been suspended for a month by aviation regulator DGCA because of discrepancies present in internal audits.
- The airline’s simulator licenses were temporarily suspended earlier, but were allowed to restart after the airline rectified the highlighted issues.
Air India continues to face the results of the surveillance of its internal audit, wherein India’s aviation regulator found several lapses. Earlier, the carrier’s simulator licenses were temporarily revoked, and now its Chief of Flight Safety has been suspended for a month.
Flight safety chief suspended
India’s aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), has taken motion against Air India’s Chief of Flight Safety by suspending him for a month. The airline continues to be penalized by the DGCA after it found discrepancies in its internal audits in July.
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The actions of several post holders were examined, and the aviation watchdog sent show cause notices to the concerned people after reviewing Air India’s report of corrective motion taken. The Times of India quotes a senior DGCA official as saying,
In July, Air India failed an internal safety audit upon further verification by a two-member surveillance team from the DGCA. The surveillance team was not satisfied with the final result of the improved verification of the unspecified 13 safety checkpoints.
Previous penalties
The most recent development comes weeks after Air India’s simulator training facilities in India were suspended. The airline has simulators in Mumbai and Hyderabad – it trains its pilots flying the widebody Boeing 777 and 787 aircraft at the power in Mumbai. In Hyderabad, it trains its pilots on the simulator for its narrowbody fleet of the Airbus A320 family of aircraft.
Photo: Nicolas Economou | Shuttertsock
The DGCA took a while to confirm certain details before it gave conditional approval to the airline to restart the training. Air India was allowed to resume simulator training for 30 days after it rectified the discrepancies highlighted by the regulator. The airline also reportedly initiated an internal audit of the 2 simulators and can hand over the report back to the DGCA in the approaching days.
Air India’s Airbus A350 fleet chief passes away
Meanwhile, in one other blow to Air India, its chief of Airbus A350 fleet, Captain Sandeep Gupta, unfortunately passed away after reportedly affected by Dengue. Gupta had recently returned from Airbus’ facility in Toulouse after conducting an A350 test flight.
Air India ordered 40 A350s as a part of its large order earlier this yr with each Airbus and Boeing. The primary A350 aircraft is slated to hitch the airline in the following couple of months, and Air India is training a pool of pilots to operate the aircraft.
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