The Hindu Business Line : Is Indian aviation a flying hazard?

In May, I wrote that this monsoon season might show how safe our skies are. Many questioned my misgivings as being too pessimistic. A look at what has happened the last two months shows that things are getting alarming.

In the last two months, there have been several incidents/accidents which have dampened the confidence of the travelling public. Civil aviation officials, whether they are from the Ministry, the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation, the Airports Authority of India, or the airlines, would do well to do some introspection. Claiming clean chits from international organisations, in the form of safety audits and ISO certifications, cannot hide the fact that the skies have become unsafe.

Every airline in India has contributed to this unsafe situation. Accidents/incidents have happened either due to human error or mechanical faults. In the last couple of months, several flights made emergency landings due to mechanical problems. Is this due to the aging aircraft or poor maintenance, only time and introspection will tell. Unfortunately, the civil authorities do not admit that there is a shortcoming in the system.

Shocking Apathy

There have been several overruns where the aircraft has moved away from the paved surface of the runway. The accidents to the aircraft of private airlines last year should have opened the eyes of the authorities that surveillance on the quality of the crew is lacking. The recent events should send alarm bells clanging but the apathy is shocking. Are they waiting for a fatal event before reacting?

Consider some recent events in most of which aircraft was damaged or passengers injured. Thankfully, there was no loss of lives:

Paramount Airways’ aircraft overshooting the runway at Visakhapatnam.

Jet Airways’ New Delhi-Indore flight skidding off the runway; the aircraft was damaged and a few passengers were injured.

Spicejet aircraft landing on the wrong runway at Delhi.

A Delhi-Kochi Jetlite aircraft skidding off the runway in Kochi.

An Air India Express aircraft skidding off the runway in Kochi.

A private business jet overshooting the runway in Indore and getting substantially damaged.

An Air Deccan aircraft getting bogged on the side of the runway while lining up for take-off in Kolkata.

There have been several incidents involving other airlines where the aircraft have ‘departed’ from the runway but not out of the paved area. Does all this augur well for aviation safety? The monsoon has just begun and is yet to peak. From last week of July to mid- August, the weather system will intensify. Are we prepared for safety?

The recent disclosure under the RTI (Right to Information) law has sent shockwaves among the safety conscious but does not seem to have impacted the authorities. According to the report, 70 per cent of the personnel manning the CNS (the radar equipment in Air Traffic Control) are under-qualified. Combine this with the reported two near misses every month, a disaster is waiting to happen. One hopes and prays that the ‘traffic avoidance and collision equipment on board aircraft are well maintained, and the fatigued crew react correctly and quickly to early warnings.

Pointless Circulars

In several of the incidents/accidents in India, expatriate crew have been involved. Yet, there is a general apathy in checking their qualifications. The experience levels of crew manning the aircraft have reduced and there is a general lack of experience or knowledge on monsoon flying. The DGCA may issue several “mandatory” circulars but rendered meaningless by the waivers and dispensations that are given regularly.The cost of an accident, especially a fatal one, is not easy to calculate.

Unfortunately if the public memory is short, the media do not seem quite aware of the import of the incidents/accidents. Thus, the recent runway incidents in Kochi, hardly made news. Unless the media start a major campaign to highlight these safety infringements, the travelling public may not be aware of the dangers that they are exposed to.

Weather conditions have become unpredictable. The ATC system of using what is called ‘Tactical Radar Vectoring’ of aircraft in Mumbai and Delhi regions makes it difficult for pilots. The controllers may know where the aircraft is, but the pilot can only view the planes picked up by the onboard equipment that have a limited range. With a tired, inexperienced crew in monsoon conditions, this lack of situational awareness can be disastrous. If pilots take their own weather avoidance measures, the sky can only become more dangerous. The ground radar cannot view the weather at altitudes the same way an airborne weather radar can. This is one of the reasons near misses happen in a crowded sky.

Pressure on crew

With the rising cost of aviation fuel, all airlines try to do with the barest minimum. Flights depart with expectations of a reasonable delay at the destination. Unfortunately, in the crowded skies over Mumbai and Delhi, predicting the extent of delay is next to impossible. This puts enormous pressure on crew and makes the sky even more unsafe.

Aviation in India is expanding on an exponential scale. But there are not enough qualified personnel — pilots, engineers, air traffic controllers and so on. Fatigue is a silent killer. Except for pilots, there are no rigid duty time limits for the other important personnel. Even in the case of pilots, the rules and regulations covering fatigue is outdated. A new circular on flight and duty times has been in the cold storage for the past several months. The more this is delayed fatigue may not prove to be the silent killer.

(The author is an airline captain with 35 years flying experience.)