NEW DELHI: The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has cracked the whip on flying training organisation (FTOs) following a spate of accidents involving their aircraft. Aviation regulator Arun Kumar had ordered a special safety audit of the 32 functional FTOs in India, that began on March 21, 2022. So far 30 schools have been audited and a series of lapses have been discovered after which action like suspending the licence of one school and grounding chief flying instructors (CFI) has begun.
Based on the findings of this audit and probes into recent crashes, the DGCA said in a statement on Thursday it has initiated “enforcement action (like issuing) warning letter to two accountable managers; suspension orders to two CFIs for a year, two CFIs for three months, one deputy CFI for a year, two deputy CFI for three months, one AFI for three months and one student for 3 months.” The approval of one FTO has been suspended. Enforcement actions against other individuals/ FTOs are at various stages, the statement says.
The review of FTOs led to the discovery of deficiencies like non compliance of DGCA requirements for conducting breath analyser (BA) examination. “Some instructors, student pilots and aircraft maintenance engineers did not undergo BA test or submit undertaking prior to commencement of duty/exercise of privileges. In some cases, the equipment being used (for BA test) was not in compliance with the requirements or calibrated as required,” the DGCA report said.
The regulator found cases of “false logging”. “In come cases dual flight has been logged as solo flight and few other cases the taxi time was calculated towards the instrument flying time of the student pilot.”
“Aircraft with faulty or unserviceable instruments such as fuel gauges, stall warning were found to be used for training. There were deficiencies in ground training of student pilot like overlap of flying training and ground training, lack of arrangement for ground training and not having the required instructors,” the regulator’s statement said.
In many cases flying training procedures and their implementation were found to be quality deficient. Student pilots were not appropriately briefed and trained on emergencies/essential exercises before being released for solo flights/cross country. The checks found “adhocism in allocation of trainers as trainers are frequently changed and thereby affecting the learning experience of student pilot.”
Facilities at airfield or training organisation at many places were not being maintained as per the requirements. For example, the runway surface was worn out and wind sock was found torn or non-standard. “Emergency response plan was not practiced and contained obsolete contact details. The emergency response plan is of great importance when an accident/incident occurs,” the statement said.
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