Tata owned Air India has been fined Rs 90 lakhs by civil aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for operating a flight on July 9 from Mumbai to Riyadh with an unqualified crew.
Besides this Air India's Director of Operations and Director of Training has been fined Rs 6 lakhs and Rs 3 lakhs, respectively due to the lapse. DGCA released that , “Air India Ltd operated a flight commanded by a non-trainer line captain paired with a non-line-released first officer which has been viewed by the regulator as a serious scheduling incident having significant safety ramifications.”
The incident came to notice when the airline submitted a volunteer report about the flight on 10 July. The aviation regulator investigated the operations of the carrier, including documents examination, and spot check of the scheduling faculty.
In the July 9 incident, the trainee pilot was supposed to operate the Mumbai-Riyadh flight with a training captain however the captain fell ill and got replaced with a non-training captain.
The aviation regulator said that, “It was prima facie revealed that there are deficiencies and multiple violations to the regulatory provisions by several post holders and staff, which could significantly affect safety.”
The aviation regulator has also said that the flight commander and the airline’s post holders were given an opportunity to explain their positions through show cause notices, which were issued on 22nd July.
According to DGCA, the reply submitted show cause notices by the concerned parties did not provide satisfactory justification. Following this, DGCA started the enforcement actions according to the provisions of the prescribed regulations and has, therefore, imposed such fines.
Air India was also fined in March earlier this year for violating regulations regarding Flight Duty Time Limits (FDTL) and the fatigue management system (FMS) of flight crew. The fine was around ₹80 lakhs.