The DGCA Has Played Fast and Loose With Pilots' Wellbeing

The plane crash at Ahmedabad has drawn focus to essential aspects of flying and the role played by the Director General of Civil Aviation or DGCA, the government regulatory organisation responsible for flight safety, in ensuring each parameter is sufficiently fulfilled. When it comes to pilots, the body's behaviour is worth noting.

In August 2023, IndiGo pilot, 40-year-old Captain Manoj Subramanyam, died after a cardiac arrest at Nagpur Airport, just before he was to fly the plane to Pune.

He collapsed while waiting in the security hold and was declared dead when he was brought to the KIMS-Kingsway Hospital in the city. IndiGo airline officials said Subramanyam had flown Thiruvananthapuram-Nagpur-Pune scheduled the day before between 3 am to 7 am; and after 27 hours of rest, he was rostered to fly four sectors beginning with the Nagpur-Pune sector at noon.

Three months later, in November, a 37-year-old Air India pilot died on duty at Delhi airport, while undergoing training to fly the Boeing 777 jets. The stated cause was cardiac arrest.

In November, 2010, an Air India Express crash landed in a fireball at Mangalore airport, killing all 158 passengers and crew. Investigations found that the Serbian pilot, Zlatko Glusica, was disoriented having been asleep for much of the three-hour flight from Dubai. According to reports, the plane had not only approached Mangalore at the wrong height and angle, but it had overshot the runway. The black box revealed Glusica's co-pilot H.S. Ahluwalia issuing repeated warnings to abort landing and try again. Worse, the data recorders also had sounds of heavy snoring. Industry officials say Glusica, who had 10,000 hours of flying and was also familiar with the Mangalore airport, had been affected by “sleep inertia” after his long nap.

Pilot fatigue

Now, these incidents may seem few and far between for air passengers.

But the Safety Matters Foundation, an NGO, conducted surveys on pilot fatigue in 2020, 2022 and 2024 which are illuminating. The last survey conducted in July 2024, among 530 pilots, revealed that 70% felt that extended duty hours of flight periods exceeding 10 hours had a significant impact on fatigue. Indian airlines are allowed to schedule pilots for flight duty for up to 13 hours in a 24-hour time frame. 63% pilots said roster instability or schedule changes, and frequent tail swaps – changing of aircraft – when combined with other factors like maximum flight duty, minimum rest and multiple landings, added to the fatigue. It also disrupted their body’s internal clock, disrupting hormone release, body temperature and digestion.

The 2022 survey results among 542 pilots was shocking – 66% of pilots admitted to dozing off during shifts or during flights due to exhaustion, and 54.2% experienced excessive daytime sleepiness. Morning departures and extended duty hours were identified as major contributors to fatigue for 74% of pilots surveyed. Also, 40% of pilots were hesitant to report fatigue fearing repercussions from airline bosses, with 30% citing this as a significant deterrent. Horrifyingly, the survey found that 31% of pilots said they experienced a close call due to fatigue-related issues, apart from the increasing number of pilots being declared medically unfit, the survey revealed. However, despite findings, revised duty guidelines have been held up following representations by airline companies.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) defines fatigue in aviation as “a physiological state of reduced mental or physical response capability resulting from sleep loss, extended wakefulness… that can impair a person’s alertness and ability to perform safety related operational duties.” A majority – 74% – of the pilots surveyed said that back-to-back morning flights was the primary reason for fatigue. The pilots had to wake up between 3 am to 3.30 am if they had to report for a 6 am departure.

Also read: Aviation Funding Discrepancy, Vacancies Undermining Safety: What Parliamentary Panel Flagged This March

DGCA's response

So it is worth noting how the DGCA has typically responded to pilot organisations which have been demanding a better and more productive flight duty roster. The Indian Pilot’s Guild, the Indian Commercial Pilot’s Association and the Federation of Indian Pilots have fought a seven-year battle in both the Mumbai and Delhi high courts for relaxed duty hours and enhanced rest. Indian aviation has dismal rules for crew flight duty and rest periods as compared to international norms, and repeated surveys have shown Indian flight crews are consumed by fatigue and sleep deprivation.

But until this year, when the DGCA agreed to more rest for pilots, it had largely been against revising crew schedule for safety, instead deferring to airline interests citing operational feasibility. After all, better rest means employing more flying crew, thus raising expenses exorbitantly for airline companies.

In 2019 the DGCA introduced new cockpit guidelines for flying and rest, which comes under the Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) Rules. These were challenged in court by pilot organisations. Their petition pleaded that the new FDTL rules were harmful and asked for a revision, and the DGCA, after the public glare following the pilots’ deaths in 2023, came up with a revised set of rules for pilot health and safety.

Then, the DGCA dragged its feet in implementing the rules under what can be assumed to be airline companies’ pressure. There were multiple adjournments in court, the DGCA was accused of inordinate delays in filing counter affidavits, apart from government lawyers forcefully defending existing rules.

The DGCA’s response is not the least bit surprising, says a high ranking Air India pilot who flies the Boeing Dreamliner. He says, “The DGCA, the pilots and airlines differ hugely on the rules. For instance, we have insisted there should be three pilots in the cockpit on certain sectors, which is to be determined by the number of time zones you are crossing, flying time, duty hours, weather changes, etc. The DGCA however, vetoed the demand from pilots for more cockpit crew. Of course, long haul flights have three and four pilots who rotate duty in flight."

The Ahmedabad-London flight had three pilots earlier as the weather and wind speed was changing, but it was reduced to two recently, he adds. The Wire has not been able to independently verify this.

The Delhi high court ruled in favour of the pilots in early 2024 when it ordered the DGCA to issue and implement the revised FDTL norms based on global benchmarks and medical research, which resulted in many changes that included reduced maximum duty hours of eight a day but more importantly, increased the weekly rest from 36 hours to 48 hours. It also called for reduction in night flying as the definition of night duty was now between midnight to 6 am, instead of 5 am, and for the maximum number of night landings to be capped at two.

Not surprisingly, even as the DGCA set a June 1, 2024, deadline for airlines to comply with the new rules, the latter resisted, saying it would throw their operations out of gear and they needed more time. The DGCA complied without announcing any new deadline much to the chagrin of the petitioners. According to media reports, IndiGo and Air India refused to follow the new rules until June 2025; SpiceJet said it can comply only by March 2026. IndiGo said it can phase out its increase of pilots’ rest first from 36 hours to 40 hours only by June 2025 and later to the mandatory 48 hours; Air India said it would fully comply by June 2025.

Finally, the Delhi high court that came down on the DGCA in December 2024, ruling in favour of pilots, and asked the regulatory and safety body to implement the new rules by early 2025. In February 2025, the Delhi high court got an undertaking from the DGCA that the implementation of the new rules will kick in from July 1, 2025, with the compliance of all stakeholders for pilot and passenger air safety, from airlines, pilot bodies and the DGCA itself. But even as the court finally disposed of the matter, the DGCA has said the FDTL norms will come in from July 1 in a phased manner, and that some new aspects like the new rest hours are still under discussion and will likely be phased and rolled out from November 1, 2025.