Spurt in mid-air snags, DGCA starts special audit of airlines

New Delhi, July 24

Taking note of the increasing number of snags in passenger aircraft, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has initiated a special audit of scheduled flight operators to ascertain whether the airlines are adhering to the laid-down standards in this regard.

Faults leading to flight diversions

• A number of instances of snags leading to flight diversion to nearest airport have been reported
• One Air India and two Go First planes grounded by the DGCA in past week due to engine trouble
• 33% cancellation of domestic flights in first quarter of 2022-23 took place due to technical snags
• This is second only to weather, which accounted for 35.7% of cancellations during this period

Started on July 19, the special audit will focus on the availability of sufficient and suitably qualified and experienced manpower, including training and duty time limitation and facilities such as hangers, stores, spares, consumables, special tools and equipment. The focus of the audit will also be on maintenance data for all types of aircraft in the fleet, quality assurance system (for conducting internal audits and quality assessments), aircraft grounded due to lack of spares, the multiple minimum equipment list (MEL) and the maintenance control centre.

Adequacy of turn-around time during transit — through spot checks and implementation of the PIB recommendations (engineering related) — is also included in the focus area of the special audit.

According to the DGCA order, dated July 18, the audit teams are to be headed by an officer not below the rank of Deputy Director of Airworthiness and will include two other officers of the Airworthiness Directorate (headquarters/regions). The team leader will provide the report of the audit to the DGCA headquarters on the day following the completion of the audit. DGCA teams that recently carried out spot checks of flights of various scheduled airlines found that qualified personnel were not being deployed by the airlines for certification for “release” of an aircraft for flying. Before each departure, an aircraft is checked and certified by an aircraft maintenance engineer. The spot checks found that the teams of aircraft maintenance engineers of airlines were improperly identifying the “cause of a reported defect”, the DGCA said.

“It is also seen that airlines are resorting to frequent one-off authorisation to Category A certifying staff at transit stations which is not in line with existing regulatory provisions,” it mentioned.

On Monday, the DGCA also issued a directive to the airlines to strictly adhere to the laid-down guidelines regarding the certification process and gave the airlines a 10-day deadline to fall in line.

The DGCA officials said the special audit will be completed within the next two months.