DGCA DG to chair meeting with Air India, Air India Express five days after Ahmedabad plane crash

Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) Director General Faiz Ahmed Kidwai will chair a virtual meeting with Air India and Air India Express on Tuesday, five days after the Air India plane crash that rattled the nation.

The DGCA, which is India’s civil aviation regulator, however did not specify when this meeting will be held.

The DGCA director’s meeting comes five days after the Air India plane crash with 242 people on board.

On June 12, an Ahmedabad to London Air India plane crashed into a medical college complex in Ahmedabad moments after taking off from the airport at 1.39 pm. As many as 241 passengers and crew on board died in the accident, while one passenger miraculously survived.

The death toll in the incident climbed to at least 270, as people on ground were also killed after the Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft went up in flames following the crash.

The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London with 242 people on board began losing height seconds after take-off in Ahmedabad on June 12.

DGCA’s order to Air India

The DGCA had earlier ordered Air India to carry out additional maintenance actions on its fleet of Boeing 787-8/9 aircraft equipped with General Electric’s GEnx engines with immediate effect.

In addition, the regulator ordered Air India to carry out power assurance checks on its Dreamliner fleet within two weeks.

Following the order, Air India is running safety checks on the aircraft, which has resulted in delays and cancellation of flights. 

On Tuesday, Air India flight AI159 from Ahmedabad to Gatwick Airport in London – which has been operating under the new code post the crash – was cancelled. Air India said that the reason was unavailability of aircraft due to additional checks and airspace restrictions, which has resulted in higher turnaround times.

Air India has been ordered to submit a closure report of maintenance actions based on a review of repetitive snags in Boeing 787-8/9 aircraft in the the past 15 days at the earliest.

According to a report by Reuters, the DGCA has further asked Air India for the training records of the pilots and dispatcher for the plane that crashed on June 12.

The DGCA said the requests were part of a “regulatory” review of the accident, and also sought details of action taken following the watchdog’s audits of Air India in the last few months.