DGCA warned Air India Express for delaying Airbus engine fix, forging records: Report
The surveillance by the DGCA revealed that the modification of the parts “was not complied” on an engine of an Airbus A320 “within the prescribed time limit”, a government memo said
Air India Express, Air India’s low-cost carrier, was reprimanded in March by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in March for not changing engine parts of an Airbus A320 as required by European Union’s aviation safety agency, and also falsifying records to show compliance, a report said on Thursday (July 4) quoting government’s confidential memo.
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According to a report by Reuters news agency, Air India Express, in a statement to it, acknowledged the error to aviation regulator DGCA and undertook “remedial action and preventive measures”. The issue was raised on March 18.
What was agency's directive?
This report is revealed within a month of Air India’s AI-171 Ahmedabad-London flight crashed in June with 242 onboard. Only one passenger survived.
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The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in 2023 issued an airworthiness directive to address a “potential unsafe condition” on CFM International LEAP-1A engines, asking for replacement of some components such as engine seals and rotating parts, saying some manufacturing deficiencies had been found, the report said.
The agency’s directive said, “this condition, if not corrected, could lead to failure of affected parts, possibly resulting in high energy debris release, with consequent damage to, and reduced control of, the aeroplane.”
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The surveillance by the DGCA revealed that the modification of the parts “was not complied” on an engine of an Airbus A320 “within the prescribed time limit”, the government memo said, as per the report.
“In order to show that the work has been carried out within the prescribed limits, the AMOS records have apparently been altered/forged,” the memo added.
Mandatory modification
The Aircraft Maintenance and Engineering Operating System (AMOS) software is used by airlines to manage maintenance and airworthiness.
The mandatory modification was required on Air India Express’ VT-ATD plane, the memo added.
According to AirNav Radar website, that aircraft typically flies on domestic routes and some international destinations such as Dubai and Muscat.
The lapse “indicates that the accountable manager has failed to ensure quality control," it added.
Air India Express told the news agency its technical team missed the scheduled implementation date for parts replacement due to the migration of records on its monitoring software, and fixed the problem soon after it was identified.