India asks airlines to boost engineering capabilities after series of safety incidents

Jet Airways (India)

01/08/2022 14:21

By Aditi Shah
    NEW DELHI, Aug 1 (Reuters) - India has asked airlines to
increase their engineering-related capabilities at all base and
transit stations, the junior minister for civil aviation told
lawmakers on Monday, after a series of safety-related incidents
in recent weeks.
    Airlines have also been asked to take "appropriate
mitigation action and greater internal surveillance to ensure
safety of air operations", V. K. Singh told the parliament. 
    Indian airlines reported 478 technical snags in the year to
June 30, 2022, but dozens of mid-air safety incidents in recent
weeks have prompted special spot checks and safety audits by the
aviation regulator. 
    The spotlight is on Indian budget carrier SpiceJet Ltd
 SPJT.NS , which has experienced "a series of occurrences during
operation of their aircraft fleet" due to malfunction of
components, bad weather or bird strike, Singh said.
    On Thursday, a SpiceJet plane was forced to abort its
take-off on a Mumbai runway due to a caution alert, in the
latest incident involving the loss-making airline which came a
day after the regulator cut its capacity by half.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2Z91L6 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2Z82Q2
    Between May 2 and June 6, the Directorate General of Civil
Aviation (DGCA) conducted special safety checks on 300 aircraft,
including 62 planes belonging to SpiceJet. The spot checks
raised findings that were corrected by the airlines, he said.
    The DGCA carried out another round of checks from July 9 to
July 13 on just 48 SpiceJet aircraft. 
    While the checks did not raise "any significant finding or
safety violations", as an abundant safety measure the DGCA
prevented use of 10 planes until the airline was able to rectify
all the reported defects or malfunctions, Singh added.
    SpiceJet said on Monday it was confident of addressing any
concerns the regulator might have.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2ZD0XZ   
    The government has urged airlines to "give utmost importance
to safety of operations" and special audits and spot checks have
been ordered by the DGCA, Singh said.

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India's SpiceJet airline faces multiple technical malfunctions  
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 (Reporting by Aditi Shah
Editing by Mark Potter)
 ((aditi.shah@tr.com; +91-11-4954 8023, +91-11-3015 8023;
Reuters Messaging: twitter: @aditishahsays))