Air India fined ₹90 lakh for operating flight to Riyadh with wrong pilot pairing

Air India fined ₹90 lakh for operating flight to Riyadh with wrong pilot pairing

This is the eighth penalty imposed on the airline by

DGCA since January 2023.

Jagriti Chandra

NEW DELHI

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has slapped a fine of ₹90 lakh on Air India for a flawed pilot pairing that included a trainee pilot on a flight from Mumbai to Riyadh on July 9.

The cockpit crew included a trainee pilot alongside a non-trainer pilot. A junior pilot who has not yet been released for flying can only be assigned cockpit duties along with a line training captain, a type rating instructor, or a designated examiner.

This is the eighth financial penalty, totalling ₹4.45 crore, imposed on the airline by the aviation safety regulator since January 2023. The regulator, in a press statement, said the incident has been viewed as serious with significant safety ramifications, referring to a rostering lapse on the part of Air India.

The DGCA imposed a fine of ₹6 lakh on the airline’s director of operations, Pankul Mathur, and ₹3 lakh on the director of flight training, Manish Vasavada. It has suspended permission for Mr. Vasavada to hold the post of director of training for six months.

In the July 9 incident, the trainee pilot was supposed to operate the Mumbai-Riyadh flight with a training captain. However, the training captain fell ill and was replaced with a non-training captain.

The two pilots realised the goof-up on the part of the scheduling department mid-flight and filed a voluntary report after landing in Riyadh.

The regulator said that during an investigation it found several lapses, but did not go into the details.