New Delhi: An audit report by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, India’s government body that regulates civil aviation, has found more than 50 lapses in operations by Air India, as per news reports. 

According to Reuters, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) found 51 safety lapses at Air India in its July audit conducted by 10 DGCA inspectors and four auditors. The safety lapses identified in the audit report included lack of adequate training for some pilots, use of unapproved simulators and a poor rostering system. Per the Reuters report, 11-page confidential audit report by the DGCA flagged seven “Level I” breaches which are “significant” and need to be fixed by July 30. It also found 44 other “non-compliances” which need to be corrected by August 23.

The news agency quoted officials as saying that they found “recurrent training gaps” for some unspecified Boeing 787 and 777 pilots, saying they had not completed their monitoring duties before mandatory periodic evaluations.

Monitoring duties are mandatory operations where pilots don't fly, but observe how instruments function in the cockpit.

The DGCA report also flagged operational and safety risks, and added that Air India did not do “proper route assessments” for some ‘Category C airports’. Category C airports are those that have challenging or complex approaches and departures, often due to unique geographical or operational factors, and require crew to be specially trained for such operations. The report also added that Air India had conducted training for such airfields with simulators that did not meet qualification standards.

“This may account to non-consideration of safety risks during approaches to challenging airports,” the Reuters report quoted the DGCA audit report as saying.

Reuters added that the audit report also “criticised” the airline's rostering system, pointing out that it didn’t give “a hard alert” if a minimum number of crew members were not being deployed on a flight. It noted that at least four international flights had flown with insufficient cabin crew.

The audit report also flagged door checks and equipment checks showing “inconsistency with procedures” and that there were also “gaps in training documentation”. No chief pilots were assigned for the Airbus A320 and A350 flees, it added.

“This results in a lack of accountability, and effective monitoring of flight operations for these aircraft types,” the Reuters report quoted the audit report as saying.

Meanwhile, a report by The Tribune claimed that the DGCA had flagged over 80 violations and observations in its audit report, while a PTI report listed the number of violations at “around 100”.

In a statement to Reuters, Air India claimed that it was “fully transparent” during the audit. Per the report, Air India also added that it would “submit our response to the regulator within the stipulated time frame, along with the details of the corrective actions.”

The lapses in Air India operations identified in the audit report come after its Boeing 787 crashed in Ahmedabad in Gujarat last month, just after take off, killing 241 of the 242 people on board the flight. A preliminary report into the June crash found that the fuel control switches were flipped almost simultaneously after takeoff. One pilot asked the other why he cut off the fuel and the other responded that he hadn't done so, the report said.

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