In the wake of last month’s deadly Air India crash, an audit into the airline’s operations is being conducted. Boeing 787 Flight 171 crashed into a medical college campus and in the city of Ahmedabad, west India, shortly after take-off, killing all but one of the 242 people onboard and at least 19 on the ground.
The July audit itself is reportedly not related to the crash but is in fact an annual exercise, it comes at a time when the Indian airline is facing fierce scrutiny over its operations, according to Reuters. The confidential report of the audit by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) runs for 11 pages and highlights seven significant “Level I” breaches that need to be fixed by July 30 and 44 non-compliances that must be resolved by August 23. The regulator also found “recurrent training gaps” for some unspecified Boeing 787 and 777 pilots, use of unapproved simulators and a poor rostering system. One major concern is the fact that pilots had not completed their monitoring duties, in which they would not fly but instead observe the functioning of instruments in the cockpit, ahead of mandatory periodic evaluations.
Flagging operational and safety risks, the report noted that Air India did not do “proper route assessments” for some Category C airports – those with challenging layouts or terrain – and 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 report highlighted.
The DGCA has often flagged concerns about Air India pilots breaching the limits of their flight duty periods and the audit report said an AI-787 Milan-New Delhi flight last month exceeded the limit by two hours and 18 minutes, calling it a “Level I” non-compliance.
It also slammed the Tata Group-owned airline rostering system, which it said “doesn’t give a hard alert” if a minimum number of crew members are not being deployed on a flight. It added that at least four international flights had flown with insufficient cabin crew.
Tata acquired Air India from the government, and while aggressively expanding its international network, it has been plagued by persistent complaints from passengers about soiled seats, broken armrests, non-operational entertainment systems, and dirty cabin areas.
Air India’s fleet includes 34 Boeing 787s and 23 Boeing 777s, according to the Flightradar24 website.
In a statement to Reuters, Air India said it was “fully transparent” during the audit. It added that it will “submit our response to the regulator within the stipulated time frame, along with the details of the corrective actions”.
A preliminary report into the crash found that the fuel control switches were flipped almost immediately after takeoff and there was pilot confusion in the cockpit. One pilot asked the other why he cut off the fuel and the other responded that he hadn’t done so, the report said, referring to a conversation captured on the cockpit voice recorder.
At the crash site, however, both fuel switches were found in the “run” position. The report noted there had been indications of the engines relighting before the low-altitude crash.