DGCA orders airlines to put pilots in school to get monsoon-ready

Mumbai: Come our monsoons and aircraft overshooting or skidding slippery runways are not new occurrences at all. So, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) issued a circular a few days earlier to all airlines, directing ground school training for all pilots to be able tackle the monsoon climate.
The stated purpose is to ensure safety against the aviation accidents that occur every year, despite the predicted regularity of the Indian monsoon. Analysis of these incidents, it adds, has shown they mostly occurred due to human deficiencies.
An Air India spokesperson said: “We always provide special monsoon training to pilots on our simulator or such before the monsoon. It is an annual practice for us.”
While techniques of handling air turbulence are crucial, a pilot from a major airline said the training provided isn’t enough. “We have to trust our years of experience in flying to get us through air turbulence, as these can’t be predicted. Though simulators help, real life experiences of encountering cross-wind and other turbulences are far different,” he said, on condition of anonymity.
A Jet Airways spokesperson confirmed, “As per DGCA’s revised circular, all of our pilots are being inducted into this programme for operations ahead of the rainy season. Day-long ground training is currently underway.”
According to experts, the biggest dangers during the monsoon are wet runways and air turbulence and the DGCA has tried to cover these in its pointers on what the ground school training should cover. Some of the measures the circular has stressed on are updating captains about Indian monsoon climatology, use of weather radar (type-specific) and techniques of weather avoidance.
15/05/10 Sneha Kupekar/Business Standard

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Categories: Airports May 2010, Indian Aviation- In General May 2010, Safety May 2010