Nine near air misses were reported in the last eight months, which
raised concerns over the country’s civil aviation and safety
standards.Even as Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is
gearing for US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) team for lifting
safety downgrade on the Indian civil aviation sector, nine air misses
involving India’s commercial airlines have already taken place this
year. These nine incidents, which include the latest Jet Airways
goof-up, will weaken India’s case for lifting the safety downgrade of
the country’s civil aviation sector in January this year.
According to official sources, the goof-up involving Jet Airways
Boeing 777-300 ER that suddenly descended 5,000 feet below its
designated flight path over Turkey’s airspace will prove to be
embarrassing as it was not immediately reported to the DGCA.
Strangely, the DGCA remained clueless about the incident and came to
know after receiving an anonymous SMS five days after the incident.
A senior civil aviation ministry official said the US team is bound
to raise the issue about incidents going unreported as the DGCA lacks a
proper monitoring system.
A top government official said the Jet incident exposes how
illequipped the DGCA is as it remained clueless for an entire week after
the incident. “The regulator must have its own internal intelligence
network. If it fails to know of what is happening within the airline,
the concept of having a regulator is lost,” the official explained.
Though the DGCA has initiated action against Jet Airways for concealing
the incident, sources said the damage has already been done.
The Jet incident could have proved dangerous as another plane could
have been flying in the additional flight corridor created vertically
below with an approximate separation of 3,000 feet on the Asia-Europe
air route through Turkey’s airspace. A top DGCA official told Mail Today
that most Indian carriers, barring Air India, do not have an adequate
number of qualified instructors to train their pilots. After Jet, DGCA
would also conduct a training audit of other Indian carriers to maintain
better training standards as per the international norms.
“You cannot have a pilot with a laid back attitude. They must be
sensitive enough and be adequately trained from time to time-which is
not followed by most carriers as the cost of training is very high. We
are also asking other airlines, besides Jet, to streamline their
training of pilots. The airline will have to strictly enforce stringent
training standards,” he added.
Another civil aviation ministry official disclosed that some airlines
have been skipping periodical training programs for pilots during the
winter and monsoon season. “We have been complaining about this for very
long. Airlines have largely bunked the norms in this regard,” he said.
Flights connecting Europe and Asia are currently not flying over
Ukraine where a Malaysia Airlines MH17 plane was shot down last month.
Similarly, Iraq’s airspace has also turned into a war zone and is being
avoided. This leaves only one path over Turkey’s airspace for the
Europe-Asia sector, making it one of the busiest air routes in the
world.
Meanwhile, the DGCA has set up a three-member team to review Jet
Airways’ flight training programs and facilities following the incident.
One of the issues that led to the downgrade of India’s aviation
sector by USFAA was lack of chief flight operation instructors. This
issue is likely to crop up again as the DGCA has managed to appoint only
35 of 75 such instructors required by the US aviation regulator.
- Story and Comments: http://indiatoday.intoday.in
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