The Civil Aviation authority the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has issued show cause notice to four senior officials of SpiceJet. DGCA recently investigated multiple incidents of aircraft veering off the runway and found some lapses on the officials’ part.
The show-cause notices are issued to four main heads -- GP Gupta, Accountable Executive; Capt. GPS Grewal, Chief of Flight Safety; Capt. SPS Suri, Senior Vice President - Operations; Capt. Vishal Sawhney, Head of Training – according to Press Trust of India.
According to a PTI report, some of the officials seem to have given mere counselling to the crew, where corrective action was required. Sometimes, these officials have resumed to counselling through telephone instead of taking serious actions. SpiceJet’s training chief Sawhney is blamed for not undergoing Safety Management System training.
Head of Training has not constituted any SAG (Safety Action Group) within the department to discuss and resolve critical safety issues concerning training, the notice stated.
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In the notice to GPS Grewal, the DGCA has stated that Vishal Sawhney or his deputy did not ensure implementation of “Safety Management System” in flight crew training department. The entire department also failed to report the incidents to DGCA as and when they occurred.
We received the show-cause notices issued by the DGCA. The concerned officials will submit their replies within the timeframe given by the regulator. Safety is the core value of our operations and is a shared objective of both the DGCA and SpiceJet. We will take all possible steps that may be required to strengthen our safety mechanism further, SpiceJet responded to the allegations.
Besides the show-cause notice, DGCA has asked the airlines involved in runway incidents to ground the pilots involved in the events. DGCA has started to conduct an audit of the airlines in the wake of these incidents.
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