Sunday, December 09, 2018

Fallout of Ghatkopar crash: Firm loses DGCA nod to repair aircraft

Mumbai: After five people were killed in a plane crash in Ghatkopar this June, the Indian civil aviation regulator undertook an audit of Indamer Aviation Pvt Ltd, the company that had carried out repairs and maintenance of the ill-fated aircraft.

Citing a list of malpractices that the audit unearthed, the regulator has now ordered suspension of aircraft maintenance and repair work carried out by Indamer at its Ahmedabad base, and partially curtailed the work it undertakes at its Mumbai base.

The audit findings do not pertain to the June 28 King Air C-90 Ghatkopar crash.

But soon after the crash, on July 2, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation issued an order to audit Indamer, and the eight-day inspection carried out in July and September covered the work it undertook on other aircraft parked at its bases in Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Pune.

“Evidence of aircraft being released for flights without recording or rectifying known defects were found,” said the letter sent recently by Pawan Kumar, director of airworthiness, DGCA, to Indamer. It listed 11 audit findings of a “significant” nature.
“As a sample, 19 cases of non-recording of defects encountered by maintenance/operational personnel were evidenced,” it said.

The malpractices include carrying out major aircraft inspection checks without necessary tools and equipment, illegal cannibalisation of spare parts, use of locally-fabricated tools that haven’t been subjected to appropriate inspection or certification to carry out critical inspection of B200 aircraft and AgustaA109 helicopters.

“There are (a) number of findings, related to inadequate facilities, lack of procedures, inadequate infrastructure, non-availability of required technical manpower, nonadherence to standard procedures wherein the organisation did not satisfactorily demonstrate compliance to the applicable regulations,” the audit findings said.
09/12/18 Manju V/Times of India

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