The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Friday imposed a penalty of Rs  98 lakh on Tata-owned Air India Limited for operating flights with non-qualified crew members from Mumbai to Riyadh. Additionally, the aviation watchdog also penalised the Director Operations and Director Training of Air India, slapping fines of Rs six lakh and Rs three lakh respectively. This incident was highlighted after the airline submitted a voluntary report on July 10.

DGCA said as per regulations, a trainee co-pilot is supposed to fly with a trainer captain. However in this case, trainee co-pilot was found flying with a non trainer captain. DGCA has called it a serious scheduling mistake having serious safety ramifications.

According to sources, on landing in Riyadh, the young trainee would have asked the training pilot to sign his SLF (supervised line flying) form. However, the training captain fell ill and rostering replaced him with a normal line (not training) captain. Enroute, the two pilots realised this mix-up (which wasn’t their fault) by the scheduling department. The other pilot could not have sign that form as he was not a training captain. The trainee could not have known this. And the other pilot could not have known the trainee was to do supervised flying under a training captain.

In a statement, DGCA said the concerned pilot has been warned and asked to exercise caution to prevent such occurrences in future. “M/s Air India Limited operated a flight commanded by a non-trainer line captain paired with a non-line-released first officer which has been viewed by the regulator as a serious scheduling mistake having significant safety ramifications," it said. After the incident came to its notice through a voluntary report submitted by the airline on July 10, the regulator investigated the operations of the carrier, including examination of documentations and spot check of the scheduling facility.

"Based on investigation, it was prima facie revealed that there are deficiencies and multiple violations of the regulatory provisions by several post holders and staff, which could significantly affect safety," the release said.

 DGCA also said the flight's commander and the post holders of the airline were provided an opportunity to explain their position through show cause notices issued on July 22.  The reply submitted by the concerned persons failed to provide satisfactory justification. As such, DGCA has initiated enforcement action in terms of provisions of the extant rules/ regulations and imposed the above penalty, the watchdog noted.

Air India was also fined in March earlier this year for violating regulations regarding Flight Duty Time Limits (FDTL) and the fatigue management system (FMS) of flight crew. The fine was around Rs 80 lakhs.