Even as issues pertaining to air safety are accorded top priority, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has ended up flouting its own rules in appointment of seconded Flight Operations Inspectors (FOIs).
The DGCA has on its panel senior management pilots from airlines who work as seconded FOIs on deputation.
FOIs are those who have clocked at least 5,000 hours of flying, including 3,000 hours as pilot-in command. While working for the DGCA in inspection of aircraft and route checks of pilots, they are allowed to fly for their parent airlines without any disruption of their duties in the DGCA.
The idea of seconded FOIs was implemented when Naseem Zaidi was the D-G of the DGCA in January 2009.
The Civil Aviation Requirement of the DGCA clearly states in the clause 6.3 of Section 8, Series A Part III that an FOI “shall have no management responsibilities in his airline nor in any way be associated with pilot associations/unions, etc, during his tenure to avoid clash of interests.”
Surprisingly, a list of 19 seconded FOIs, posted on the DGCA website, has many pilots who also work as vice-presidents or hold senior managerial positions in their airlines. “How can a head of training, safety or operations do justice to the job? Several in the list have managed to retain their position as FOIs,” a senior official of an airline, who did not want to be named, said. The list, updated on October 29 this year, also has five FOIs from Air India.
Supposed to inspect planes of airlines other than their own, FOIs are known to favour each other by often not being too strict on minor snags, flight-time and duty-time limitation violations which, industry sources say, could turn out to be one of the factors resulting in compromising on foolproof air safety.
“If airlines sent names of their management pilots for appointment as FOIs, they deliberately flout DGCA rules. And if they did so, what action the DGCA has taken against them? Naturally, senior management pilots will show undue favours to each other and will not be able to act in a totally unbiased manner. As being from senior managerial posts, they will ensure that interests of their airlines are protected,” aviation analysts said. And, if the DGCA knowingly empanelled the managerial cadre pilots as FOIs, the regulatory body itself had violated its own safety rules, they added.
Sources in the DGCA said seconded FOIs, on deputation to the DGCA for two years, could have got promoted to managerial positions later. They did not rule out a complete review of the entire issue of seconded FOIs.
