After clean chit,FAA to review DGCA’s security measures

The country’s air safety regulator,Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA),may find itself in the dock again US. The US air safety monitoring agency,Federal Aviation Administration (FAA),which had earlier threatened to downgrade India’s safety ranking from Category I and subsequently given the Indian regulator a clean chit,will be reviewing the recent measures taken by the DGCA in four-five months’ time.

The FAA is said to have communicated this decision to the civil aviation ministry in the recently held India-US Aviation Partnership Summit attended by senior officials. FAA,which conducts an audit to determine whether a country complies with international air safety standards,would undertake a detailed review of the steps taken by the DGCA so far,said an official close to the development. The civil aviation ministry will also monitor and oversee the progress of DGCA’s initiatives to mitigate the concerns highlighted by the US agency. While most of the issues raised have been taken care of,the deployment of manpower and creation of technical posts will take around two years,the official said. “This is a serious matter and the civil aviation ministry would be closely watching the developments. We don’t want an embarrassing situation,” said the official.

In September,India was found to be fully compliant with the international safety standards in an audit done by FAA. Before permitting a foreign airline to operate in the US,the FAA conducts an audit of the concerned country’s civil aviation authority to ensure its capability for providing safety certification and continuing oversight on its international carriers. FAA had stated that complete action and correction of concerns raised by FAA was done in the available time space which is considered rare in the history of IASA.

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India’s Category I status had come under a cloud last year,when the FAA raised concerns in the areas of adequate technical guidance for DGCA inspectors,hiring and retaining technical personnel in DGCA,establishment of an on-going surveillance programme of air operators and the resolution of identified safety issues.

DGCA was required to rectify the concerns in the identified areas in a short time frame of about five months. Repercussions of non-action could have resulted in India being downgraded to Category 2 status. Under Category 2,no expansion/ changes to the services of Indian air carriers would have been permitted by the US and the existing operations would have been subjected to ‘heightened surveillance’.