The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has removed the flight safety chief of South India’s regional airline Air Pegasus and suspended five of its pilots for serious safety violations observedduring its audit this April.
“We observed that the pilots violated norms on multiple occasions as the flights which they operated had a high rate of descent than prescribed even when close to the ground. In one case, a flight landing in Thiruvananthapuram would have overshot the runway had the runway length not been close to 11,000 feet. Also, the airline had failed to report the incidents to us,” said a senior DGCA official, adding that the pilots continued with the approach instead of doing a go-around in that case.
The pilots have been suspended for a period varying from a week to a few months. The official said the mandatory Flight Operations Quality Assurance monitoring was not conducted properly by the airline’s flight safety chief.
According to the norms, a scheduled airline has to monitor data for every flight, which has to be preserved for six months. The DGCA audit was conducted in the last week of April.
The Bengaluru-based airline’s managing director Shyson Thomas has been warned to be more careful in future and ensure compliance with the regulatory framework, the DGCA officials said. “We have already taken corrective measures and submitted an action taken report to the DGCA,” Mr. Thomas said.
Air Pegasus has three ATR-72 aircraft and flies to seven destinations – Hubli, Mangaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, Kadapa, Chennai, Bengaluru and Madurai, as per its official website. The airline, promoted by ground handling firm Decor Aviation, began operations in April last year.
