Airline regulatory body does not have a single pilot on rolls

Mumbai: It is strange that the organization mandated to regulate the aviation sector doesn't have a single pilot on its rolls. The pilots who work with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) are those employed with airlines and other aviation companies and are paid by respective companies and work part time with DGCA to make up for the regulator's lack of technical experts.
No wonder that scams which involve incompetent pilots and unscrupulous chief flight instructors take a while to be unearthed. "Nearly 62 out of the 265 permanent personnel (does not include aircraft engineering directorate) that DGCA employs are senior officials and the rest are administrative staff, assistants, clerks, peons, etc," said an aviation source. None has a valid pilot licence.
To compensate, DGCA appoints consultants and officials on a temporary basis. "The DGCA has 63 consultants appointed on short-term contract basis, including pilots," the source added. For airline-related issues, for instance, DGCA gets help from airline pilots. Though these pilots are members of DGCA's Flight Standard Directorate, they draw their salaries from their respective airlines. That this arrangement does not take care of all technical needs is clear from the recent experiences DGCA has had with its investigations. The investigation report on a May 2010 incident onboard a Dubai-Pune Air India Express flight in which the aircraft plunged several feet over the Arabian Sea is a case in point.
05/04/11 Manju V/Times of India

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Apr 2011