Safety in the sky – The DGCA should have no tolerance for laxity among airlines seeking to cut corners

Source: The post is based on the article “Safety in the sky – The DGCA should have no tolerance for laxity among airlines seeking to cut corners” published in The Hindu on 12^th July 2022.

Syllabus: GS 3 – Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc.

Relevance: To understand aviation safety in India.

News: Recent incidents in Indian aviation have raised concerns about air passenger safety. These incidents cover bird hits, cracked windshields, component failures, engine compressor surges and blade failures, flight diversions, mid-air engine shutdowns, and a case of severe turbulence in the monsoon.

With most of them affecting one airline, SpiceJet. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation(DGCA) has pointed out a ‘degradation of safety margins’, ‘poor internal oversight’ and ‘inadequate maintenance actions’ in aircraft.

What is the performance of aviation safety in India?

According to Ministry of Civil Aviation data, there were 5,268 aircraft movements in the domestic sector. It has even cited an average of 30 such episodes a day.

According to DGCA’s Annual Safety Review in 2020, under ‘Deficient maintenance’ (the objective is to improve the maintenance of Indian registered aircraft), for a target of 2.16 for incidents involving component/system failure per 10,000 flight hours, the achieved performance is 2.39. Similarly, under the number of maintenance errors per 10,000 flight hours, for a target of 1.43, the performance is 1.46.

What should be done to improve aviation safety?

In an ideal ecosystem, issues with safety would be analysed in terms of the rate of occurrence using tiered categorisation, with the goal of reducing to the minimum level.

With passenger numbers climbing back to pre-COVID-19 levels, the entry of new airlines, and the existing players indicating aggressive fleet expansion plans, the DGCA should have no tolerance for airlines seeking to cut corners in passenger safety.