India’s aviation security regulator Directorate Common of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has issued a sequence of present trigger notices to Tata group airline Air India over lapses pertaining to insufficient cabin crew deployment, necessary crew relaxation durations, and crew coaching and operational procedures, it’s learnt. The notices, a minimum of 4 in quantity, had been issued on Wednesday and had been primarily based on voluntary disclosures by Air India. The regulator has given the airline 14-15 days to reply to the notices, failing which the DGCA will proceed with motion primarily based on the knowledge obtainable to it.
“We acknowledge receipt of those notices from the regulator associated to sure voluntary disclosures that had been made during the last one yr by Air India. We are going to reply to the stated notices throughout the stipulated interval. We stay dedicated to the protection of our crew and passengers,” an Air India spokesperson stated on Thursday.
The newest present trigger notices come shut on the heels of different regulatory motion on Air India pertaining to safety-related points over the previous month or so. The airline has evidently been below the DGCA scanner following the June 12 crash of its flight AI 171 in Ahmedabad, during which 260 individuals perished—241 of the 242 folks on board, and one other 19 on the bottom. A preliminary investigation report into the tragic crash stated that the Air India aircraft crashed after each its engines had been starved of gasoline as the 2 gasoline management switches transitioned from ‘RUN’ to ‘CUTOFF’ place inside a second of one another moments after lift-off.
One discover said that Air India operated 4 ultra-long-haul flights—three in April and one in Might—with out the sufficient variety of cabin crew being deployed, thereby flouting cabin crew responsibility and relaxation laws. As an alternative of the required 15 cabin crew members, one flight was operated with 12 crew members, whereas the opposite three had 14 crew members every. “Such non-compliance represents a severe breach of regulatory necessities and raises issues concerning the security administration and operational oversight inside your group,” the DGCA stated within the related present trigger discover.
One other discover primarily based on voluntary disclosure by Air India cited 19 cases of violations in crew coaching and operational procedures since July 2024. Three of the lapses pertained to pilots, whereas 16 pertained to cabin crew. “Regardless of repeated warnings and enforcement actions up to now, these violations display a unbroken failure to implement efficient coaching governance and compliance monitoring mechanisms. This constitutes a severe security and regulatory concern,” the DGCA stated.
One other present trigger discover pertained to 2 cases of cabin crew members working flights with out legitimate competency playing cards, and one occasion the place a cabin crew member operated a flight, regardless of having by chance deployed an emergency slide. Deployment of the slide with out being required bars the cabin crew member from working a flight with out going via a requalification course of.
