India - Lack of inspectors but plenty of rats

Blow to Indian air safety as 13 flight inspectors resign MUMBAI: Thirteen Flight Operations Inspectors (FOIs) working with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) have tendered their resignations in the past one week in protest against the aviation regulator's decision to post them away from their homes in Delhi to bases in Mumbai and Chennai. The letters sent by these inspectors appealed to the director-general to cancel their transfers and allow them to work out of Delhi, failing which, they said, the letters should be viewed as resignation notices. In the last one year, after India was downgraded by the US's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for failing to meet international aviation safety standards, the DGCA recruited 50 current and former airline pilots as FOIs. The regulator got them trained for carrying out jobs that demanded technical expertise like airline surveillance, clearing airline pilots as aircraft examiners and instructors etc. This April, the FAA upgraded India, but put some conditions, one of which was that DGCA should have 75 FOIs on its rolls by December. The resignation letters by 13 FOIs have therefore put DGCA under pressure. Currently, all FOIs are based in Delhi, so most of the inspections are carried out on flights that originate from Delhi. Flights operated in places like Assam, Andhra Pradesh, etc, hardly come under surveillance. Then again, there are airline training centres in cities other than Delhi and so it is pertinent to have FOIs based elsewhere too. For instance, Air India has its Boeing 787 training base in Mumbai, so FOIs trained to clear Boeing 787 instructors and examiners would need to be in Mumbai. "FAA officials had said DGCA should have FOIs based not just in Delhi, but also in Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai," said a source. In the last one week, DGCA gave transfer letters, and about 12 FOIs were asked to move to Mumbai and another dozen to Chennai. Those who have their homes in Mumbai or Chennai have not protested against the transfers. The director-general was not available for comment. From the DGCA point of view, the conditional resignations are violation of the three-year contract it entered with these FOIs. "The contract specifies FOIs can be posted anywhere. They were informed about this during interviews as well. They readily agreed to that condition during the recruitment process," said an official. "In fact, quite a few pilots did not take up the FOI job because of this condition," he added. From the FOIs viewpoint, the manner in which these transfers have come is unjust. "The transfer letters came suddenly in the last one week. We have been asked to join at the new base from June 1 onwards. That is too short a notice. DGCA does not provide for accommodation. Many FOIs have children studying in schools and colleges. It is not possible to move cities at such short notice," said an airline pilot. A majority of FOIs are in their forties and fifties, with a few very experienced ones over 60 years old. The DGCA needs FAA's stamp of approval as the US regulator conducts audits under its International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) program, which is an assessment of the aviation regulator of each country that has carriers operating to the US. FAA is not permitted to evaluate a foreign carrier like Air India or Jet Airways, so the IASA audits determine if the regulatory authority concerned, the DGCA in India's case, provides oversight in line with international standards to its carriers that fly to the US. If the regulatory authority meets international standards, FAA gives it a Category-I rating. It allows the country's carriers to add more flights to the US and take part in reciprocal code-share arrangements with the US carriers. But if the regulator is found to fall short, like the DGCA was last year, the country gets a Category-II rating. In that case, airlines from the accessed country cannot add new flights and their flights come under increased surveillance when in the US. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Blow-to-Indian-air-safety-as-13-flight-inspectors-resign/articleshow/47437452.cms Back to Top

Rats spotted in AI aircraft in Leh, plane grounded (India) The most common way for rats to get on board an aircraft is through catering vans.  NEW DELHI: An Air India (AI) aircraft was grounded in Leh on Tuesday after some rats were spotted in the Airbus A-320. An aircraft needs to be fumigated after a rodent is sighted to ensure it is eliminated and does not pose a threat to safety by cutting electric wires and sending the systems haywire. With these facilities not available at the high altitude Leh airport, the plane had to be grounded. AI would fly the equipment to Leh by another flight on Wednesday. "The aircraft will be fumigated on Wednesday morning and kept locked for a couple of hours. After that it will hopefully be flown back to Delhi in the little window of operation that Leh offers maximum up to noon," said an official. The Leh airport has a short window of flight operations that begins from 22 minutes after sunrise (by when shadows of nearby hills do not linger over the airfield) to just after noon from when winds become so strong that aircraft movement is not possible. "Forget something as big as fumigation equipment being stationed in Leh, our machine used to load and unload baggage from aircraft has not been functional for almost two years now. Loaders load and unload baggage by hands in Leh. As a result, the turnaround time of an AI aircraft with 90 passengers on board is an hour, while a private airline that operates 180-seater aircraft to Leh is able to take off from there after landing in half an hour. And then, the higher ups talk of improving on time performance!" said an AI source. Once even a single rat is observed on an aircraft, the plane has to be fumigated. "Rats on board an aircraft can lead to a catastrophe if they start chewing up electric wires of a fly by wire plane. If that happens, pilots will have no control on any system on board leading to a disaster," a senior commander said. What usually prevents such a situation is that passengers inadvertently drop a lot of food on the cabin floor, which keeps rats busy. The most common way for rats to get on board an aircraft is through catering vans. "This is a universal phenomenon. Rats follow the large storage cases in which food trays are kept. The catering vans are like a home for them as food keeps getting dropped. Rats get on the high lifts that take those storage cases to aircraft and then remain there. This happens across the world," said an official.