New Delhi: In a worrying trend for air-safety in the country, there were as many as 422 air-safety violations in 2016 by pilots, cabin crew and aircraft maintenance engineers of scheduled airlines in the country, a sharp increase from 275 in 2015 but DGCA sources said this was due to “heightened surveillance” last year.
Out of the 422 cases detected last year, as many as 272 airline employees including pilots and cabin crew were suspended for varying time-periods last year by aviation regulator DGCA. As many as 108 employees were let off last year with a warning, with another 42 being taken off the duty roster.
Low cost carrier SpiceJet suffered the dubious distinction of maximum number of employee suspensions by the DGCA at 68 last year (for varying time-periods in 2016) among scheduled airlines in the country.
Jet Airways with 53 suspensions of employees came second in the list, with Air India third at 47 and market leader IndiGo fourth at 41. The violations included failing in the pre-flight medical test for alcohol detection, operating flights beyond validity of pilots proficiency check, allowing unauthorised entry in the cockpit and exceeding flight duty time limitation (FDTL). .
