DGCA to kickstart inspection of Air India's main hub
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New Delhi: The civil aviation regulator will conduct a comprehensive review of Air India 's main base in Gurugram from Monday. The exercise, which was planned before the airline's plane crash in Ahmedabad on June 12, entails checking the carrier's records of aircraft and whether they are airworthy, along with training and duty period records of the flight crew, according to a document seen by ET.The inspection is part of the annual surveillance programme of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation ( DGCA ) and not triggered by the crash, said a senior DGCA official, who did not wish to be identified.It comes at a time when regulatory scrutiny of Air India's operations has increased following the crash. The DGCA has asked its inspectors to provide details of all inspections and audits conducted on Air India since 2024.The DGCA has also revamped its audit procedure to make it more comprehensive. The revamp comes in the wake of the crash of Air India's Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft in Ahmedabad which killed 241 people on board and more than 30 on the ground."Traditionally, regulatory and safety oversight functions within Indian aviation have been conducted in silos, performing inspections and audits specific to their respective domains.These activities include planned or unplanned surveillance inspections, random spot checks and ramp inspections, which primarily assess compliance and safety within individual aviation segments," the DGCA said in a notice, a copy of which was seen by ET.The new framework marks a paradigm shift, aiming to evaluate the aviation ecosystem holistically, moving away from fragmented oversight models, it said.The audits will examine three broad areas - the effectiveness of an organisation's Safety Management System, the robustness of its operational practices and its compliance with regulatory provisions.A senior official of the DGCA said these special audits will be conducted by officials with expertise in different areas such as air safety, airworthiness of aircraft, training standards of crew and air navigation.The exercise will be conducted periodically for all airlines, airports, aircraft maintenance organisations and pilot training schools. "A serious incident or a crash or continuous non-compliance may trigger this audit but it will also be done periodically, giving prior notice to the company," the official said.On Sunday, Air India said that it will temporarily reduce 118 weekly flights operated with narrow-body aircraft across 19 routes and suspend operations on three routes.
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