Mumbai: If Air India is to believed, then civil aviation minister Vayalar Ravi and not the director general of civil aviation is now deciding whether pilots have had their mandatory rest to safely operate passenger flights beyond legally permissible duty hours.
The matter relates to the March 19 Delhi-Tokyo-Delhi flight AI-306. A day before, top Air India officials briefed the minister about operating flights to Tokyo. "There were concerns about radiation exposure. They sent me a brief about it," said Ravi. Little did he know it was more than a regular briefing.
Next day, Air India called four of its overworked Boeing 747-400 pilots ” two commanders and two co-pilots ” to operate the 19-hour, quick turnaround return flight to Tokyo. It left from Delhi at 6pm and returned at 1pm the next day.
"These pilots should not have been called for this flight as they had exceeded the maximum limit of extra duty a pilot is legally allowed. But they were told the minister had given the airline a waiver to circumvent the rule," said an airline source.
The airline could only circumvent this by getting a nod from the DGCA. "The director-general would not have given the dispensation as the airline had many other Boeing 747 pilots who had hardly done any flights. So, they should have been rostered for the Tokyo flight," said the source.
21/04/11 Manju V/Times of India
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