Back‘Astounding’: Jet Airways CEO on aviation safety and glitches on social media
Jet Airways CEO Sanjiv Kapoor tweeted: 'Folks, please seek out informed, expert opinions. Don't go by hearsay'
PremiumJet Airways CEO Sanjiv Kapoor said that there is a lot of "uninformed drivel" circulating on social media on matters relating to aviation safety and glitches. “The amount of uninformed drivel I have seen on social media last 24 hours on matters relating to aviation safety and glitches, is astounding. Genuine issues and non-issues conflated and given equal coverage. Folks, please seek out informed, expert opinions. Don't go by hearsay," Sanjiv Kapoor tweeted.
His tweet came amid a series of incidents involving SpiceJet aircraft.
Indian airline company SpiceJet is going through a highly turbulent phase in recent times on account of several glitches
An unusually high number of incidents involving the aircraft has prompted the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to seek an explanation from the airline. The latest incident involved a China-bound cargo plane operated by SpiceJet returning to Kolkata after its weather radar stopped working. Facing the showcause notice, SpiceJet Chairman and Managing Director Ajay Singh said that they are running "a safe airline for the past 15 years" and that "one or two incidents being highlighted in media doesn't mean any airline is unsafe".
Singh told ANI that the kind of incidents being talked about are "trivial and happen on a daily basis in airlines". On an average, he said, 30 such incidents happen in airlines every day.
Let's look at the timeline of events
- In early May, 11 passengers on board its flight from Mumbai to Durgapur in West Bengal were injured in severe turbulence and were hospitalised. Two of them were put into intensive care units (ICU). The airline had then maintained that the seat belt sign was on when the aircraft encountered turbulence and several announcements for the same were also made.
- In the later part of May, SpiceJet systems had faced an attempted ransomware attack that impacted and slowed down morning flight departures, while several passengers had complained about the poor services.
- On May 28, the pilots on a SpiceJet flight from Mumbai to Gorakhpur decided to fly back to Mumbai after a windshield crack was observed mid-air.
- A Delhi-bound SpiceJet aircraft made an emergency landing at Patna airport on June 19, after there were reports of a technical glitch which ignited fire on the plane.
- On the same day itself, a Jabalpur-bound SpiceJet flight landed back at the Delhi Airport after it failed to regain the cabin pressure differential even after attaining a height of 6,000 feet.
- On July 2, a Jabalpur-bound SpiceJet flight returned to the Delhi airport after passengers detected smoke in the plane.
- On July 5, a Dubai-bound SpiceJet flight from Delhi with more than 150 passengers was diverted to Karachi in Pakistan as the fuel indicator started malfunctioning.
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