Communication problems in general - Curt Lewis

SPICEJET EMERGENCY LANDING PROBE POINTS TO INFO BLOCK

Report says lessor hadn't shared plane's safety record details in last year's incident.

A probe into the emergency landing of a SpiceJet flight, which had been taken on lease from a Bulgarian carrier along with the crew, following a hydraulic system failure in Mumbai last year has revealed that information about the plane's safety record had not been appropriately shared by its owner.

The Aircraft Accident Investigation Board (AAIB) had tasked deputy director of air safety and inquiry officer H.N. Mishra to conduct the probe. Although the report was submitted to aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in November 2016, it was made public only this week.

In the report, Mishra observed that the DGCA should put in place norms to ensure lessors provided proper and authentic information about their aircraft leased to domestic airlines whenever there was a probe in keeping with a recommendation of the AAIB.

SpiceJet's Mumbai-Delhi flight, with 158 people on board, had made an emergency landing at the city's airport on March 19, 2016. The Airbus-319 had been wet leased from Bulgarian operator BH Air.

Unlike a dry lease, where only the aircraft is hired, the plane is taken along with crew members in wet lease. Maintenance and insurance of the aircraft is also taken care of by the lessor in a dry-lease deal.

DGCA has made it clear that a domestic airline operator is required to maintain detailed maintenance and operational information about leased aircraft. But in this case, Mishra's report said that BH Air did not respond to the request of SpiceJet for "incident information" after the wet lease expired.

"Provisions should be made in DGCA regulations to ensure the lessor provides aircraft incident and accident information to the lessee whenever required for incident investigation," it said. The AAIB further found out that the leased aircraft had suffered a failure of its hydraulic system. The flexible hose attached to the main landing gear of the plane had developed cracks, which caused hydraulic fluid to leak.

The report also noted that while both pilots and cabin crew had acted satisfactorily during the emergency situation, the passengers had unnecessarily panicked.

The passengers had not paid heed to instructions given by the Bulgarian crew not to inflate their life jackets (despite an announcement in Hindi by the lone SpiceJet crew member who was on board). In fact, they exactly did the opposite.