In the flights, several life vests were not properly secured beneath their designated seats. The corrosion-resistant tape on the right-hand side winglet's lower blade was found to be damaged.
New Delhi: The report card of Delhi and Mumbai airports is not all that impressive after a comprehensive survey conducted by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). The DGCA teams have found multiple cases where the maintenance of aircraft was not carried out as per work order and reported defects re-appeared many times on the aircraft indicating ineffective monitoring and inadequate rectification action on the defects.
Following the air crash in Ahmedabad, the DGCA had initiated a focused assessment of the aviation ecosystem to strengthen safety measures across the sector. As part of this initiative, surveillance covered multiple critical areas such as flight operations, airworthiness, ramp safety, air traffic control (ATC), communication, navigation and surveillance (CNS) systems, and pre-flight medical evaluations. Throughout the surveillance, ground activities and aircraft movements were closely monitored to check the compliance of regulatory requirements and to identify weak areas for improvement.
Two teams led by the Joint Director General of DGCA carried out comprehensive surveillance during night and early morning hours at major airports including Delhi and Mumbai. Without giving the names of the airport, the DGCA said during inspection, the ground handling equipments such as baggage trollies, baggage freight loader, etc were found unserviceable and line maintenance stores, tool control procedures were not followed.
At one place, a domestic flight of a scheduled carrier was held up due to worn tyres and it was released only after the required rectification was carried out, the DGCA said. The audit report said that during maintenance of aircraft, the work order was not followed.
“The unserviceable thrust reverser system and Flap Slat Lever were not locked; during maintenance, safety precautions were not taken by Aircraft Maintenance Engineering (AME) as per Aircraft Maintenance Manual (AMM), and at places, AME was not attending to the snag rectification. Besides, defect reports generated by the aircraft system were not found recorded in the technical logbook,” the DGCA said.
In the flights, several life vests were not properly secured beneath their designated seats. The corrosion-resistant tape on the right-hand side winglet's lower blade was found to be damaged.Similarly at an airport, centre line marking of the runway was observed to have faded, the rapid exit taxiway, green centre light were not unidirectional, the DGCA report said.
It added that the number of vehicles in the ramp area were found without speed governors. These vehicles were withdrawn by cancelling there Air Vehicle Pilot and drivers Airside Driving Permit were suspended. “A simulator was checked and found not matching with the aircraft configuration. Also the software was not updated to the current version,” the report said.
The DGCA said that it found that obstruction limitation data of buildings near aerodrome has not been updated for the last three years and no survey has been performed despite many new construction around the vicinity of aerodrome.
All the findings observed during the surveillance have been communicated to the concerned operators for taking necessary corrective actions within seven days. This process of comprehensive surveillance will continue in future to detect hazards in the system.
