Aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation, which issued a show-cause notice to SpiceJet earlier this month, did not come across any major safety violations in its spot checks on the budget airline’s aircraft between July 9 and July 13.
V K Singh, minister of state for civil aviation, on Monday shared that the DGCA had carried out 53 spot checks on 48 SpiceJet planes between July 9 and July 13. This was after the regulator issued a show-cause notice to budget airline in connection with eight malfunction incidents in the last 18 days.
However, as a safety measure, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) ordered SpiceJet to use certain identified aircraft (10) for operations only after confirming to the regulator that all reported defects/malfunctions are rectified,” reported PTI citing Singh.Starting June 19, several technical issues were reported on several SpiceJet flights, following which it received a show-cause notice from the DGCA. The notice stated that “poor internal safety oversight” and “inadequate maintenance actions” have resulted in degradation of safety margins.
Just three days after issuing the notice, the regulator started conducting spot checks on SpiceJet planes, Singh stated. The spot checks were completed on July 13. But the DGCA did not find any major significant finding or safety violation.
In its notice to SpiceJet on July 6, the aviation regulator had said that the airline has failed to “establish safe, efficient and reliable air services” under the Aircraft Rules, 1937. “The review (of the incidents) transpires that poor internal safety oversight and inadequate maintenance actions (as most of the incidents were related to either component failure or system-related failure) have resulted in degradation of the safety margins,” the notice added.
The carrier was granted three weeks to respond to the notice.
