1426 technical snags reported in three years, Indigo had over 50% of it, 717 faults

In wake of the recent air disasters in Indian Sky, be it the Mig-29 fighter jet of Indian Air Force shooting down from the sky owing to a critical technical snag midair near Barmer in Rajasthan on September 2, 2024 or the recent Ahmedabad crash of the Air India Dreamliner from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick, which crashed moments after takeoff on June 12, killing 260 people onboard and on the ground, a 360-degree audit of every aircraft’s fitness cannot be dealt lightly at any cost.
Nothing should be taken for granted when it comes to aviation regulator DGCA’s comprehensive safety evaluation pertaining to the sector’s safety and regulatory compliances.
Though flyers accept blindly that the periodic and rigorous checks of aircraft fitness is a ‘not to be’ overlooked ritual, making for the core of DGCA’s responsibilities, compliance of safety rules, offlate, in aviation sector, in the country has been trampled down easily owing to cost cutting measures of airlines to keep losses in the business under control.
Recently, an Air India B737 Bombay-Bengaluru-San Francisco flight was fined Rs 1.10 crore for insufficient oxygen on Board. The penalty order was issued over a year later on January 24, 2024.
Further, reports revealed, an Air India Delhi-Riyadh flight was fined Rs 90 lakh after a serious scheduling error was detected on July 9, 2024, a trainee first officer was paired with a non-trainer pilot, much in contrast to the norms.
Also, reports further revealed that three senior Air India officials were removed from their posts for serious lapses.
Media reports from time to time keep revealing continuous series of lapses in the aviation sector be it the undertrained or fatigued pilots, unlawful entry in the cockpit, improper maintenance to severe scarcity of maintenance staff.
Though a decline in the count of technical glitches has been reported by airlines during the last three years across the country, much needs to be done to bring it to zero level.
Technical snags in an aircraft may be caused due to malfunctioning of components or equipment fitted on the aircraft which require rectification action by the airlines for continued safe, efficient and reliable air transport service in accordance with Aircraft Maintenance Manual (AMM), involving replacement of components, testing, servicing, etc.
Post satisfactory rectification of fault, the aircraft is released for service and an entry to this effect is made in the Flight Report Book.
Official reports revealed, in 2022, a total of 717 technical faults were detected in a total of 9,85,715 flights operated, while the count of technical faults declined to 386 in a total of 11,83,614 flights in 2023. Further, in 2024, 323 technical faults were detected in a total of 12,85,512 flights.
In 2022, the top three airlines with maximum technical faults include Indigo (472), Spicejet (143) and AirIndia Express (23) while in 2023, top three airlines with maximum technical faults include Spicejet (15), Indigo (115) and AirIndia Express (62).
Likewise in 2024, the airlines with maximum technical snags included Indigo (130), Air India (94) and AirIndia Express (47) respectively.
In all the three years, Indigo reported a maximum of 717 faults, which is nearly half of the total snags including 472 faults in 2022, 115 in 2023 and 130 in 2024 respectively.