New Delhi, June 13 (IANS) While a high-level probe is still on into the AI-171 crash in Ahmedabad, former Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) Sanat Kaul on Friday said the civil aviation regulator had written many letters to Air India pointing out improper safety inspections and other lapses.

Kaul hinted that possible omissions on the part of Air India employees responsible for safety checks or poor implementation of the regulatory inspections and audits by regulators could be among the contributory factors for the disaster in which 241 people on board met a fiery grave.

“The DGCA had written to Air India several times, pointing out multiple issues, mainly regarding safety, things like improper inspections and other lapses. So, the question now arises about the maintenance procedures followed by Air India,” Kaul told IANS.

The former bureaucrat said, “There’s also concern about what’s called ‘line maintenance’, the checks conducted by inspectors before every flight. How thorough and effective those checks were – is now under scrutiny…”

In the aviation industry, line maintenance refers to the routine maintenance and repair tasks performed on an aircraft between flights or during short layovers, typically on the airport tarmac.

Kaul said that matters related to civil aviation safety are handled by the regulator, the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), which functions under the Ministry but operates independently.

There is a robust and well-defined regulatory framework in the country; however, the question is “how well it is being implemented in practice”, he said.

“In such a vast system, if there were any lapses, which airline, which area, that will be investigated now,” he said.

Kaul’s comments about the possible reasons behind the crash come at a time when experts from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) and American aeroplane manufacturer Boeing, and Britain have initiated an investigation into the tragedy.

The focus of investigators is going to be on decoding data from the aircraft’s Black Box to narrow down the reason for the suspected engine failure just before the crash.

The crash, said to be the first aviation disaster in a decade involving a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, took place when the London-bound aircraft attained an altitude of 625 feet and stopped sending signals to the flight tracking system.

The pilots had given a Mayday (distress) call to Ahmedabad airport’s air traffic control (ATC) just before it descended with a vertical speed of 475 feet per minute and crashed.

–IANS

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