(a) whether the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has recently conducted a safety audit of airlines;
(b) if so, the details thereof;
(c) whether certain airlines have failed on several parameters including those on expired pilot licences; and
(d) if so, the details thereof along with the action taken by DGCA against those airlines and the pilots?
Minister of State in the Ministry of CIVIL AVIATION
(Dr Mahesh Sharma)
(a)to (d) During the last three years and the current year DGCA has conducted 21 Regulatory Audits on scheduled airlines. The salient findings of audit are as follows:
(i) Operations manual certified under CAP8100 was not updated.
(ii) Strength of trainers was found to be substantially less than the recommended strength in the DGCA Operations Circular as well as
Operator''s training manual.
(iii) CAR Section 08 Series F part II on PPC was not being strictly complied as few of the pilots were detected flying even after the expiry of validity of pilot proficiency check. However, there was no case of expired pilot licenses. The operator is giving crosswind training up to maximum of 25 kts in the training profiles of B-777 whereas in the limitation of crosswind the operator has given 38 kts of cross wind as operating limit.
(iv) The policy defined by the company in the Operator''s Manual, part D (training) addressing failure and below standard reports of flight crew during checks was found to be inadequate. The procedure to immediately give corrective training and bring back crew for utilization is not in line with the procedure prescribed in Ops Manual Part D.
The responsible pilots have been suspended/off rostered and issued warnings for operating beyond validity of Pilot proficiency Check.