DGCA slaps Rs 90 lakh fine on Air India for operating flight with non-qualified pilots

The national civil aviation regulator DGCA has imposed a financial penalty of Rs 90 lakh on Tata Group-owned Air India Limited for operating a flight with non-qualified crew members, according to an official statement issued on Friday.

In addition, a penalty of Rs 6 lakh and Rs 3 lakh respectively has been imposed on the Director, Operations and Director, Training of Air India. The concerned pilot has also been warned to exercise caution to prevent such occurrences in future.

Air India operated a flight commanded by a non-trainer line captain paired with a non-line-released first officer, which has been viewed by the civil aviation regulator as a serious scheduling incident having significant safety ramifications.

The incident came to the notice of DGCA through a voluntary report submitted by Air India on July 10. Taking cognizance of this incident, the regulator undertook comprehensive investigations into Air India’s operations, including examination of documents and carrying out a spot check of the airline’s scheduling facility.

“Based on the investigation, it was prima facie revealed that there are deficiencies and multiple violations to the regulatory provisions by several post holders and staff, which could significantly affect safety,” the DGCA said.

The concerned commander of the flight and DGCA-approved post holders of Air India were provided with an opportunity to explain their position vide show cause notices dated July 22. The reply submitted by the concerned failed to provide satisfactory justification, according to a DGCA statement.

Earlier the DGCA had grounded the two pilots of Air India after the rostering goof-up which led to a trainee pilot operating a Mumbai-Riyadh flight without the supervision of a training captain.

The trainee pilot was scheduled to operate the Mumbai-Riyadh flight on July 9, with a training captain. Upon landing in Riyadh, the trainee would have had the training captain sign his Supervised Line Flying (SLF) form. However, the training captain fell ill, and the rostering department replaced him with a regular line captain instead of a training captain. The DGCA has concluded that this was a serious safety lapse on the part of Air India.