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First officer operated flight without meeting required take-off and landing criteria last year; the airline has been directed to act against three senior officials of the rostering department and inform the regulator about it within 15 days of the order
The DGCA issued a show-cause to Air India’s heads of operations and rostering on December 13. Representational Pic/iStock
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has levied a penalty of R30 lakh on Air India for a first officer operating a flight without the mandatory recency requirements. In its, order, the regulator has slammed Air India’s rostering system leading to this lapse.
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The airline has been directed to act against three senior officials of the rostering department and inform the regulator about it within 15 days of the order.
“A first officer operated a flight on July 7, 2024 despite not having the mandatory recency requirement of three take off and landings, leading to violation [of rules]. The controllers overlooked multiple spurious alerts reflecting on the CAE window, as per the submission made by Air India Limited vide e-mail on July 12, 2024,” the order stated.
Captain Jati Dhillon, CEO, GATI, who shed light on the alleged flight rule violation
“Now, therefore, in the exercise of the powers conferred under Rule 162 of the Aircraft Rules, 1937 [DGCA] hereby imposes a penalty of R30,00,000,” read the order
A DGCA official told this newspaper, “We had issued a show cause to Air India's heads of operations and rostering on Dec 13. This was regarding the incident on July 7 when the first officer did not meet the recency requirements leading to a violation of para 3 of the civil aviation requirement (CAR). Their [Air India's] reply was found ‘unsatisfactory’ following which the order was issued, asking Al to deposit the penalty amount of R30 lakh within thirty days.”
Captain Jati Dhillon, CEO of the Government Aviation Training Institute (GATI), told mid-day, “This has two sides. One is that there is a technical glitch with the rostering software and the other is that someone has overwritten the red flag on the software. If the software is perfectly fine, then it should have red-flagged this incident. The DGCA order also states that the airline rostering officials overlooked various alerts on the rostering software. DGCA should summon the CEO and reprimand him. It is only then that the airline systems will be changed from the roots and such mistakes will not arise again.”
Asked about the effect of this action by the regulator on the career of the first officer, he added, “The first officer will not be in much trouble for this. At the most, he will be suspended for three months, but this also depends on other factors. This person trusted his/her flying licence with the airline systems and the systems failed this individual. This will not have much reputation on the first officer involved in the incident.”
mid-day requested a comment from the airline but Air India did reply by press time.
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