Re: Air India's Pee-gate incident Several questions have been raised on the thread regarding DGCA and its fines on Air India, Air India's Head of In-Flight Services and the show cause notice to the Accountable Manager* of Air India and suspension of the Captain.
My two paisa bit below having dealt with the DGCA for some years.
The DGCA is a regulator, license/permit giver and quasi-judicial authority that receives its powers from Parliament to oversee all regulation and flight safety issues and co-ordination for airports, airlines, training institutes, all civil aircraft in India and all personnel who work in these organizations.
The DGCA is well within its ambit to impose fines, suspend aviation personnel, issue show causes notices, revoke licenses etc if the DGCA after an internal investigation believes a violation has occurred and action needs to be taken. Given that flight safety or airport security is often involved the DGCA has powers to act swiftly. This in my opinion is a blessing. If things only went through our sclerotic courts a pilot in violation could keep flying you & me for years before a judgement comes a few years later - same for engineers, accountable managers, etc
The action the DGCA has taken is well within its remit. Without doubt the DGCA must have asked for a written input to its questions from Air India. Air India, regardless of the nonsense floating on social media and the ridiculous statements of Mr Mishra's lawyers, must have been very very careful to put down the facts. Trust me you don't want to mess with a regulator who controls your Air Operator's Permit. DGCA's action has been from a flight safety of the passengers and discipline in the cabin point of view not from a 'has a crime been committed' point of view - that is for the courts to determine. So it is not a question of guilty or not guilty but has an adequate dereliction of duty occured to ask the Captain {or other crew member} to sit on the bench or not. In my opinion hauling up the Captain, In-Flight Services Director & Accountable Manager {order of rank} is absolutely the right thing to do. If they believe they have been wrongly treated they can appeal. I doubt they will.
Note the DGCA has only touched those employed by the airline and have not touched Mr Mishra as that is now a police case for the courts to handle. Air India's written response to the DGCA should be a part of the prosecutors evidence.
We should not mix this up with guilt or otherwise of anyone. In the eyes of the DGCA an incident of some proportion occured on board the aircraft mid-flight. Did the Captain and senior cabin crew display the appropriate degree of leadership, timely action and fairplay to redress the situation and maintain discipline and peace in the cabin? After landing did the crew & Captain do the right thing with regards to reporting, informing the cops etc. Was the training and empowerment provided to the cabin crew adequate for the situation? Did the Captain conduct himself appropriately in terms of explicit or implicit instructions to his crew on disturbing or not disturbing him while he sleeps when an incident occurs {imagine if instead of a passenger incident this was a fire on board}. The crew's fear of waking up the big man says a lot of the tone of the work environment on board that aircraft.
I find it baffling that the extra senior flight crew in the left seat in the cockpit did not consider himself/herself empowered to offer a first class seat to the affected lady passenger. Or the cabin crew believed he wasn't empowered to do so! That pilot in command was in charge of the aircraft while the big man slept. If there was a flight safety incident would he wait for his senior to wake up or would he take action? The working environment inside the aircraft simply doesn't sound healthy at all to my flight ears and the big man is responsible for maintaining the right tone. * For readers not familiar with this term - The term 'Accountable Manager' is used to describe the single individual who is designated as the person responsible to the DGCA in respect of the functions of the airline, MRO etc and is responsible to the DGCA for all matters of aviation compliance, discipline, flight safety. That person is normally expected to be a senior person with executive and financial authority to do this to the standard required by the DGCA.
Last edited by V.Narayan : 22nd January 2023 at 22:20.
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