Air India's B787 safety woes: DGCA's response fails to inspire confidence
The DGCA’s refusal to conduct a comprehensive review of the electrical systems across India’s entire Boeing 787 fleet following the Air India Flight 171 crash is baffling.
The rote assurance of an “investigation" into the latest alarming incident involving yet another Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner does little to inspire confidence that either the civil aviation regulator or the airline’s management is treating safety issues with the seriousness they demand.
On 5 October, an Air India B787, en route from Amritsar to Birmingham, UK, experienced an “uncommanded" deployment of its Ram Air Turbine (RAT), a safety device that uses the aircraft’s momentum to force wind through a turbine to generate emergency power.
The RAT is a backup system, which is designed to automatically deploy in the event of a complete loss of engine power or other severe electrical, electronic, or hydraulic failure. This is what happened in Ahmedabad, seconds before the B787 crashed after both its engines mysteriously shut down, killing 241 people on board and another 19 on the ground.
A worrying trend
It is concerning when a similar incident occurs on the same type of aircraft operated by the same airline.
In the case of the Birmingham flight, the crew operating the flight found all parameters to be normal, and the aircraft, which was less than 500 feet short of landing at the time the RAT deployed, managed a safe landing, Air India said in a statement.
After the crash, the Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP), an association of airline pilots, wrote to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, urging a comprehensive review of the electrical systems of all B787 aircraft in the country.
"After the Air India Flight 171 crash, the FIP has been constantly insisting on a thorough check-up of the electrical system of B787 aircraft in the country. Subsequent to the crash, the DGCA checked only the fuel control switches of B787 in Air India (fleet)," the FIP said in the letter, Mint reported.
The DGCA’s refusal to do so is puzzling, particularly since multiple aircraft in Air India’s B787 fleet have experienced technical problems. On 16 June, an Air India flight from Hong Kong to Delhi (AI 315) returned to Hong Kong approximately 90 minutes after take-off due to a technical issue, with the pilot telling air traffic control, “We don't want to continue further".
The same day, a Chennai-bound British Airways Dreamliner also returned to London over a technical issue.
Other than mandating an inspection of the fuel switches—which, according to a leaked preliminary Ahmedabad crash report by the Air Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), had mysteriously turned off and on again within a second—the DGCA has taken no further action to reassess the safety and flightworthiness of the country's B787 fleet.
Critical question
There are three aspects of the DGCA’s response to the crash that merit stronger scrutiny: its immediate regulatory responses, the lack of transparency in the investigation process, and, finally, the significant deviation from its own past actions in cases involving serious fatalities.
Of the three, the last is the most puzzling. Aviation experts and pilot unions have argued that the DGCA’s isolated technical inspections were not enough, and the crash called for a deeper, system-wide technical inspection and safety audit, for which the B787 fleet ought to have been grounded.
While grounding commercial aircraft, which costs millions of dollars and runs up huge expenses if they are not operational and earning revenue, is an extreme step taken only in exceptional cases, aviation regulators have not shied away from doing so when an aircraft type has suffered a fatal crash.
The DGCA has done so several times in the past. In 2019, it was among the first regulators in a significant civil aviation market to ground the B737 Max fleet, following two fatal crashes abroad, citing safety as its “top priority".
It only allowed them to fly again after significant technical changes were made by Boeing and after a global consensus was reached among aviation regulators.
It grounded the Airbus A320 in the past, and in 2013, even the then-newly arrived Boeing 787 Dreamliner, due to battery issues. In the light of this history, the DGCA’s soft-touch approach in the present instance is puzzling.
Conflict of interest
In fact, the regulator's alleged acts of omission and commission have prompted two petitions in the Supreme Court, pleading for an independent, unbiased, and court-monitored inquiry into the Ahmedabad crash. In sum, the petitions have argued that the probe had an inherent conflict of interest, as three serving DGCA members were on the AAIB investigation panel when its own actions were subject to review.
The petitions also argue that critical technical data—such as Digital Flight Data Recorder and complete Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) transcripts with timestamps—have been withheld, limiting independent analysis.
They have also pointed out other inconsistencies in the AAIB's preliminary report, and pilot unions have charged that the selective use of CVR transcripts signalled a bias towards blaming pilot error, or worse, deliberate pilot intervention.
While the apex court will rule on the charges raised by the petition, the fact that judicial intervention has been sought indicates widespread dissatisfaction with the measures DGCA has taken so far. It needs to match its deeds to its words (of putting safety first) to ensure the secure development of the world’s third-largest (and fastest-growing) aviation market.
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