The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has issued a show cause notice to SpiceJet for its failure to offer “safe, efficient and reliable” air services following eight technical malfunction incidents involving the airline’s planes in the last 18 days.
The DGCA also reminded the airline that its permit to operate commercial flights in the country is valid only for one more year. In its show cause notice, the DGCA said the various incidents from April 1 this year till date have been reviewed, and it was found that “poor internal safety oversight” and “inadequate maintenance actions” have resulted in degradation of safety margins.
Taking note of the show cause notice, SpiceJet CMD Ajay Singh said the airline would be “doubly careful” and strengthen inspection of aircraft before they leave for flights. In a press statement, Singh said, “Lot of these incidents being reported are relatively minor in nature and happen to every airline. If the aviation regulator feels that there are any gaps in SpiceJet’s system, we will address them.”
Reacting to the DGCA notice, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia asserted that passenger safety is paramount. “Even the smallest error hindering safety will be thoroughly investigated and course-corrected,” the Minister said in a tweet.
Meanwhile, three more incidents of technical malfunction were reported on Wednesday involving SpiceJet, Vistara and IndiGo.
In the first such incident, a China-bound SpiceJet cargo plane returned to Kolkata on Tuesday morning due to faulty weather radar. The SpiceJet cargo plane of Boeing 737 was scheduled to operate from Kolkata to Chongquing, but after the takeoff it was found that weather radar was unserviceable. The pilot-in-command decided to return to Kolkata and landed the plane safely there.
In the second incident, smoke was detected in IndiGo’s Raipur-Indore flight after it landed at its destination. All the passengers were able to disembark from the aircraft safely.
In the third incident, an engine of a Vistara aircraft on the way from Bangkok failed after it landed at the Delhi IGI airport but all passengers disembarked safely.
The DGCA has given the accountable manager of SpiceJet, its chairman and managing director Ajay Singh, three weeks to respond to why action should not be taken against the airline.
The notice said SpiceJet has failed to “establish safe, efficient and reliable air services” under the terms of Rule 134 and Schedule XI of the Aircraft Rules, 1937. “Whereas the reported incidents on aircraft operated by M/s SpiceJet Ltd from 1st April 2022 till date have been renewed and it has been observed that at a number of occasions the aircraft either turned back to its originating station or continued landing to the destination with degraded safety margins,” the notice said.
The DGCA has also flagged the airline’s financial condition that has led to shortage of spare parts. “…financial assessment carried out by DGCA in September 2021 has also revealed that the airline is operating on Cash & Carry and Suppliers/Approved Vendors are not being paid on a regular basis leading to shortage of spares…,” the regulator wrote in its notice.
The notice comes a day after the airline faced at least three incidents, which included a diversion of a Delhi-Dubai flight to Karachi due to a fuel indicator malfunction, a cracked windshield on a Kandla-Mumbai flight, and a snag in the weather radar on its cargo aircraft flying from Kolkata to Chongqing forcing a turnback. The snags on Tuesday take the total incidents involving SpiceJet to 8 since May 1.
“The review (of the incidents) transpires that poor internal safety oversight and inadequate maintenance actions (as most of the incidents were related to either component failure or system-related failure) have resulted in degradation of the safety margins,” it added.
According to Singh, when you have thousands of flights, sometimes the air conditioning will fail, sometimes a bird will hit the plane, and sometimes a fuel indicator will light up. “These things are going to happen and, of course, we have to minimise that to the greatest extent possible. That is our job and it is the regulator’s job to push us to make things better, which we will do,” he said.