DGCA sacks Air India air safety chief over runway incident

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation on Friday ordered the removal of Air India chief of air safety Captain AS Soman for not maintaining flight monitoring data, sources said.

Soman was appointed Air India's air safety chief in January this year.

The move comes after an runway incident involving Air India's Bangalore-Hyderabad flight on June 28, when the pilot touched down but immediately took off again without stopping.

According to DGCA's inquiry, the pilot had reported bad whether but when the agency asked for the data it was found that no surveillance had been done for the flight.

DGCA had issued a showcause notice to the airline's chief of air safety Captain AS Soman after the incident came to its notice, sources said.

However, “his response was found unsatisfactory as he had put the blame on the engineering department,” sources said.

Air safety chief of an airline is responsible for maintaining this data.

As a result of this, the DGCA was not able to conduct its investigation as no data furnished by the airline.

According to the norms, a scheduled airline has to monitor data for every flight, which has to be preserved for six months.

After this incident, the DGCA had decided to conduct surprise checks of all airlines to make sure they are fully monitoring flight data.

Air India