DGCA Conducts Comprehensive Safety Audit at RGIA, 4 Other Airports
The findings recorded during inspections were forwarded to organisations concerned for taking necessary corrective actions: Ministry of Civil Aviation
Hyderabad: The Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) in Shamshabad is among the five airports across the country where the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation conducted a comprehensive safety audit recently.
The four other airports where safety audits were conducted were Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Patna. Airlines were also covered during these inspections. The DGCA has covered aspects related to aircraft maintenance and airworthiness, ramp inspection, breath analyser test, ground handling, cabin safety, air traffic management, cabin communication, navigation and surveillance (CNS), air navigation services standards (ANSS), aerodrome and airside operations, and State government-Civil Aviation Directorate (CAD).
The findings recorded during these inspections were forwarded to the organisations concerned for taking necessary corrective actions. This was stated by the Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol while replying to a question raised by Pathan Yousuf on DGCA safety audit report in Lok Sabha on Thursday.
The MP sought to know whether it is a fact that several repeated defects in aircraft maintenance were found during the surveillance in accordance with the recent DGCA safety audit report of major airports and airlines. He also wanted to know whether it was also found during surveillance that a flight simulator was not matching aircraft configuration and was running outdated software.
He sought details related to the regulatory mechanism in place to ensure timely simulator software updates and training compliance.
In response, the Union Minister explained that the DGCA has a structured surveillance and audit framework in place - a planned and unplanned surveillance of organization and aircraft, which includes regular and periodic audits, spot checks, night surveillance and ramp inspections across all operators, including continuous oversight of maintenance practices.
On simulator software, the Union Minister said the simulator software was done as prescribed by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). The software for B 787-8 is in line with the aircraft configuration as per OEM standards. The simulators do not have actual parts and data is synthetically provided to match the actual aircraft handling and therefore has no impact on crew training.
The simulator evaluation is done every year and is also checked by the operator, he added.