I start this article with a caveat that I don’t intend to speculate the reasons for this crash that took place in Ahmedabad on Thursday. I also express my condolences to the families who are bereaved at the movement. The possibilities of the casualties of the civilians could have been less if the density of the population around the airport could have been controlled.
Here the role of the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the regulatory body of aviation in India, comes into question. The DGCA has always had a cavalier and a lackadaisical attitude due to which thousands of flight safety violations were overlooked by it despite documentary evidence since the year 2008, when Air India brought its Boeing 777-200 and 777-300-ER long range aircraft. The then Director General (DGCA) Nassem Zaidi had formulated strict rules for the long range flight of Air India for the India- U.S Sector, which had flights of up to 16 hours.
When Air India Started their India-Australia operations with the 787 Dreamliner, the DGCA tweaked the above rules, violating flight safety requirements and endangering the lives of the travelling public and the crew.
Air India was aware that operating the said flight in that manner has an accident risk at 25 times more than the normal permissible limits. However, the said report was suppressed by Air India and DGCA so that the public would not be aware of the flight safety violation of that sector.
The 787 Dreamliners were ordered by Air India when it was in the design stage and the flight capabilities were not tested. During its initial flights of the Boeing 787 DreamLiner, with Air India there were multiple issues on the safety aspect and also with the engineering aspect. In fact I had sought to challenge the power of the DGCA to make flight safety rules for the cabin crews in two writ petitions before Bombay High Court in 2013-2014.
It is a matter of record that the present Chief Justice of India who was then a sitting judge of Bombay High Court had expressed his anguish that till 2019 neither DGCA nor Air India had filed their replies in the above two matters. It was shocking to learn that till September 2016, the DGCA did not have any power to issue/frame any flight safety rule for the cabin crew till the amendment of section 42A of the AirCraft Rule 1937.
Therefore it can been seen that DGCA was indulging and covering up its tracks of flight safety violation of Air India. I have filed many criminal cases to bring the officers concerned of the DGCA and Air India to book hoping that the trial court would deal with flight safety violations which endangers the life of the travelling public and the crew. I hope and pray that now at least now the Court will wake up and take strict action against the officers of DGCA and Air India who have blatantly violated flight safety norms.
KVJ Rao | File Photo
(The author is a former senior official of Air India).
