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The other gaps include lack of examiners to
certify pilots, lack of training facilities and
shortage of skilled ground engineers to certify
the planes before they get into air. There is
also a shortage of controllers working for airline
traffic control. All these have important bearings
on safety of flying.
It is unfortunate that a pilot of foreign origin
was involved in the Mangalore crash. No one would
like to pronounce him guilty before the inquiry
is over. The fact remains however that many pilots
of foreign origin have been involved in some incidents
and the airline regulator has been suggesting
their replacement with local pilots which the
airlines are finding difficult to achieve.
One principle of sound management in airlines
is that the training of crew including pilots
and maintenance staff has to take place before
the planes start arriving. But in the mad race
for growth, airlines in India in the private as
well as public sectors started looking for staff
after the planes had arrived, forcing them to
hire foreign pilots or poach from older airlines.
In this process, state owned Indian Airlines and
Air India suffered the maximum.
The same can be said about the ground facilities.
The expansion of runways, installation of radars
and other infrastructure which is necessary for
safety were also undertaken after the Indian skies
had become crowded. The modernisation of airports
is yet to be completed and many airports have
no approach radars to guide the pilots in final
landing. Mangalore is one of the airports which
did not have this instrument, though it had been
cleared for international flights.
Another point to be noted is that most of the
air crashes have taken place in India at small
airports. This is not to suggest that bigger airports
are safer, but one needs to be aware of the fact
that larger airports have fewer incidents as compared
to smaller airports which are upgraded to accommodate
larger planes. Most of these airfields are located
in crowded areas and face problems while extending
the runways.
This aspect obviously needs to be looked into.
Above all is the status of Director General of
Civil Aviation (DGCA), which acts as regulatory
agency as well as licensing authority for airlines,
also needs clarification.
The growth of population around the airports,
despite regulations to the contrary, is also a
hazard. Many a time, politicians support illegal
colonies to garner votes; one hopes that will
be held guilty some day.
DGCA is a department of the Ministry of Civil
Aviation which also runs airlines besides regulating
industry. There has been a demand from the industry
as well as experts for making it an independent
body in line with regulators in other industries.
This is also the case in countries like USA as
it is felt that there can be times when the interest
of the operator may clash with a regulator. Many
times the regulator has chosen to ignore violation
of safety standards by state-owned airlines particularly
when they are meeting situations like strike by
the staff.
The regulator is also responsible for fixing
regulations governing rules regarding hours the
staff is expected to fly, details regarding permissible
snags , examination of pilots and rules regarding
age up to which they can fly or perform other
functions. In many cases, the regulator has relaxed
conditions regarding age and training period to
enable the airlines to meet the situation created
by shortage of well-trained staff.
One can give a lot of credit to the present Aviation
Minister Praful Patel for the expansion of aviation
sector through de-regulation but in the process
he has also created a problem of inadequate infrastructure
to serve the industry.
Time has come when he should take steps for making
up the shortfalls to make flying safe and industry
viable. He has the first responsibility to set
the house in order for the state-owned Air India.
The merger of Indian Airlines and Air India is
essentially an exercise in books as on ground
the two airlines continue to function as separate
entities with no coordination in operation or
in commercial dealings.
Both airlines have had different fleets and staff,
and it is difficult for instance, for a person
trained in do9mestic operations to take over international
operations in a short span.
It remains an operation by bureaucrats for bureaucrats
who get special facilities and treatment like
upgrading while the paying public is neglected.
Professionalisation of airlines is a non-starter
and the Government role is limited to providing
funds to meet the mounting losses and lectures
on better management which make no difference
to operations or its working. The Minister has
offered to resign accepting moral responsibility
for the crash; instead he should be asked to clear
the mess in the entire industry as the crash is
only a part of that mess.
The author is an aviation
analyst.
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