Reform cannot wait, aviation safety is at stake

The Hindu

5 days ago

The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau's preliminary report on the Air India Boeing 787 air crash in Ahmedabad, on June 12, 2025, was released last week, on July 12. The report remains inconclusive, with critical uncertainties on whether pilot action was inadvertent or deliberate. I would argue that the lack of faith among pilots and those who track aviation like myself about the robustness of the investigation and its findings — whether correct or not — emanate from a deep lack of trust in the entire aviation system in India that often penalises its personnel, excessively, rather than holding airlines and regulators to equal scrutiny.
I would like to use this opportunity to, once again, call for a complete reform in the aviation sector. A genuine 'culture of safety' must permeate every layer of the aviation system. This includes fair employment terms and, crucially, access to mental health care without punitive consequences resulting in the automatic grounding of and loss of income for air crew at a time when the current system, ironically, jeopardises their psychological well-being.
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The complex web of aviation safety is highly technical, but years of study with aviation professionals have helped me understand its intricate technicalities. The aviation system broadly involves multiple elements: the aircraft itself (design, airworthiness, and maintenance) and the people who operate it (maintenance engineers, technicians, pilots and cabin crew). These are, broadly, the responsibility of the airline operator, while airport infrastructure, air traffic control systems and its personnel are the responsibility of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and/or the aerodrome operator. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has regulatory control over airlines, the AAI and the airport operators. The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has supervisory control over the DGCA and the AAI. Aviation accidents never result from a single failure but stem from multiple failures that align together, as in the Swiss cheese model. Each safety layer has flaws (holes); when these holes align across layers, an accident occurs.
The fight for safety through courts
I have filed over 15 Public Interest Litigations (PIL) in the various High Courts and the Supreme Court of India after studying the links between aviation technicalities, regulations and data. I approached the judiciary because aviation authorities in charge of safety, became the violators. No one is held accountable for air crashes or the lives lost, in turn emboldening violations despite knowing that existing/known safety breaches can cause deaths.
Court interventions have saved lives, as seen in the case of the crash in 2018 at Ghatkopar, Mumbai, when a small plane fell into a building site. In 2016, the Bombay High Court had issued a stay that halted construction near Mumbai airport. Had it not been issued, a 13-storey building would have stood in its place at the site..
Mumbai's airspace is among the most hazardous globally — there are over 5,000 vertical obstructions within a four-kilometre radius and in violation of the Inner Horizontal Surface (IHS) criteria. Despite a pending PIL, obstacles in the no-obstacle approach and take-off funnel rose from 125 in 2010 to over 1,000 in 2025, highlighting regulatory opacity and potential misrepresentation by the DGCA, the AAI, airport operators, and the MoCA before the Bombay High Court. Had the High Court been informed about this accurately, the spread of these obstacles could have been stopped.
Regulatory loopholes that pose a threat
Until 2008, airspace around airports was strictly regulated. The Aircraft Act and Statutory Order 988 of 1988 enabled the strict control of construction of buildings around airports. In 2008, a non-statutory committee was formed, effectively bypassing the legal safeguards that once ensured obstacle-free zones. It approved 25 buildings in prime locations in Mumbai using an aeronautical study conducted by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which ought not to have been a part of a move to recommend construction which was illegal and of extra height. By the time ICAO distanced itself from the misuse of aeronautical studies, the AAI had begun conducting its own assessments which were less stringent.
The appellate committee granted permission for extra height recklessly. Around the year 2015, these obstacles, in addition to being physical barriers to safe flight movements, began interfering with radar and communication signals. The appellate committee also came out with guidelines and capped the maximum height at 90 metres in the Inner Horizontal Surface (IHS) and recorded that 'any further deterioration in obstacle profile in and around airport is likely to aggravate the situation'. Despite this, the appellate committee allowed obstacles to come up with impunity jeopardising safe flight operations. Ironically, the appellate committee that had permitted the safety violations was given statutory recognition through the 2015 Rules — despite these rules not allowing height relaxation.
The panel comprised officials entrusted with aviation safety and included a Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Civil Aviation, a Joint Director General in the DGCA, and a Member (Air Navigation Services) in the AAI. Thus, any complaint about obstacles is essentially judged by the very entities that sanctioned them.
Under pressure after a PIL on obstacles, the MoCA amended the 2015 Rules to limit the no objection certificate (NOC) validity to 12 years — an admission of the issue but an evasion of responsibility. How does the MoCA justify approving 100-floor buildings when it knows that 45 floors would become illegal in 12 years? This raises critical questions. What are the mechanisms that exist to demolish floors that become illegal after the expiry of the NOC?
What began in Mumbai has now spread across India. Even greenfield airport projects such as Navi Mumbai (Maharashtra) and Noida (Uttar Pradesh) have obstacles sprouting around them. Navi Mumbai Airport will start operations with a 'displaced threshold' — which means aircraft will be unable to use the full runway because of the obstacles and increasing risks to air safety, thereby turning the airport into a monument of corruption and indifference by aviation authorities.
There is widespread systemic breakdown. First, aircraft design and airworthiness. The DGCA's limited internal technical capability forces it to be over reliant on foreign regulators such as the Federal Aviation Administration (U.S.) and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), as seen during the engine failure issue (Pratt & Whitney) that IndiGo experienced in 2017-18.
Second, aircraft maintenance standards. Aircraft Maintenance Engineers (AMEs) work under severe stress without duty time limits. The DGCA has allowed airlines to delegate AME tasks to less-qualified, lower-paid 'technicians' — a cost-cutting move that undermines safety. Duty-time limitations recommended for AMEs by the court of inquiry following the crash in Mangaluru (May 2010) remain unimplemented.
Third, the flight crew. Airlines violate Flight Time Duty Limitations for pilots, and the DGCA grants exemptions which allow pilots who are fatigued to operate. The DGCA's unique NOC requirement restricts pilot mobility across airlines, increasing stress and enabling airlines to coerce pilots into breaching regulations. Cabin crew, whose primary role is passenger safety, are often dismissed as mere hospitality workers, which is a dangerously reductive view.
Fourth, airline operations. Airlines prioritise the goal of profit, adopting policies that consistently undermine safety. Despite the DGCA suspending personnel for safety violations, airline officials often retain high positions, controlling operations. DGCA-appointed officers in airlines, who are expected to enforce compliance, often have no real authority, making accountability toothless.
Fifth, air traffic management. The AAI faces a severe shortage of Air Traffic Controller Officers (ATCO) — an issue that has been flagged even by parliamentary committees. The provision to give licences to ATCO has not yet been implemented. Duty-time limitations for ATCOs — recommended by the Mangalore Court of Inquiry — remain unimplemented.
Sixth, silencing whistle-blowers. Whistle-blowers are often demoted, transferred, or terminated — a trend that has discouraged the reporting of critical safety issues in the AAI and airlines.
When aerodromes operate in violation of safety standards, any other shortcomings in any of the other components become potentially fatal – as seen in Ghatkopar (2018), Kozhikode (2020), and now Ahmedabad (2025). Non-compliance in aviation stems from a lack of safety culture, not ignorance. Crashes are not mere 'accidents' — they are the inevitable result of years of systemic neglect and policy violations. Without immediate systemic improvements, the next disaster will not wait for five years, but is just around the corner.
The role of the judiciary is important
The judiciary, which has always been the silver lining in India's constitutional set-up, has been inactive on aviation issues, relying on the state's technical expertise on the subject. It must address the deterioration in the aviation sector and hold authorities accountable. Additionally, the judiciary's conservative approach to valuing human life needs to change.
In India, human life is undervalued, for example, as seen in railway accidents and motor vehicle deaths — a few lakhs of rupees. When this is the worth of a human life, safety upgrades that cost crores of rupees become easier for stakeholders to ignore. Immediate and comprehensive reform is needed. The aviation system requires accountability, oversight and a safety-over-profit commitment.
Reform cannot wait. Lives are at stake.
Yeshwanth Shenoy is the President, Kerala High Court Advocates Association, and has been fighting for aviation safety for over a decade