Patiala Aviation Club on DGCA's radar over safety norms' violation

Vijay Mohan

Chandigarh, December 16

The Patiala Aviation Club (PAC), Punjab Government’s flying training school, has come on the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s (DGCA) radar thrice in the past two years over violation of safety standards, resulting in suspension of an official’s licence and warning letters being issued.

Three lapses in past two years

• In the first instance, the DGCA found “irregularity during releasing the aircraft and fuel upliftment” in 2021, for which the licence was suspended for six months
• In other two instances, warning letters were issued for “failing to discharge the duties and responsibilities as an Accountable Manager and Quality Manager”

As many as 35 cases were reported from January 2021 to October 2022, where enforcement action was taken against various aircraft operators and service providers on engineering and maintenance aspects, according to data placed before Parliament by the Ministry of Civil Aviation recently.

In the first instance, the DGCA found “irregularity during releasing the aircraft and fuel upliftment” in 2021, for which the licence was suspended for six months.

Sources in the Punjab Civil Aviation Department revealed that the licence was of an aircraft maintenance engineer posted at the PAC’s Amritsar base.

In the other two instances, warning letters were issued for “failing to discharge the duties and responsibilities as an Accountable Manager” and “failing to discharge the duties and responsibilities as Quality Manager”.

The DGCA has an established system of conducting surveillance, spot checks and night surveillance to ensure safety of passengers and aircraft. The observations and findings made during such checks are also provided to the aircraft operators for taking corrective action at their end, which is reviewed later.

All occurrences and incidents concerning aircraft are mandatorily reported to the DGCA, which are thoroughly analysed and their severity is determined. Special audits are also carried out as per the perceived safety risk.

The PAC is among the six flying training organisations in the country which feature in the Ministry’s list against whom proactive action was initiated in the past two years for violation of safety standards.

There are a total of 34 DGCA-approved flying training organisations in the country, out of which PAC is the only one located in Punjab. Inaugurated in 1962, it has a base each in Patiala and Amritsar, which conducts training for grant of private and commercial pilot’s licence along with running other aviation related courses.