Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia chaired a high-level meeting with the senior officials of the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) and the Directorate General Civil Aviation (DGCA) to discuss the safety issues that have been reported to the ministry in the past few weeks.
Scindia told the officials to ensure that “is no compromise with passengers’ safety,” and that “safety is paramount”.
Technical miscarriages were reported on two separate flights on Sunday itself. In the first incident, a Sharjah-Hyderabad flight of IndiGo was diverted to Karachi, in a precautionary measure after a defect was observed in one of the engines.
On Saturday, Air India Express’s Calicut-Dubai flight was diverted to Muscat after a burning smell was reported from cabin mid-flight.
IndiGo and SpiceJet are already under the scanner of DGCA and MoCA due to reported safety-related incidents in the recent past.
On July 14, IndiGo’s Delhi-Vadodra flight was diverted to Jaipur in a precautionary measure as vibrations were observed for a second in the engines of the aircraft.
In yet another incident, a live bird was found in the glove compartment on co-pilot’s side inside the cockpit of a mid-air Air India Express Bahrain-Kochi flight on July 15. The incident is also being investigated by the DGCA.
DGCA issued a show-cause notice to SpiceJet following 8 incidents of technical malfunction in its aircraft since June 19.
The indigents have impacted consumer sentiment: a LocalCircles survey found out that 44% fliers reported avoiding SpiceJet while 77% said they were concerned about safety issues when flying domestic airlines.
