A recent spate of fatal air accidents around the world has once again sparked a debate about aviation safety. With India’s aviation sector being the fastest growing in the world, this should interest all Indians. As an active pilot for three decades, it is certainly of great interest to me.
To be clear, civilian commercial air travel is very, very safe. Over the decades, its safety record has consistently improved to such a level that it is indeed far safer than driving. Global statistics show the risk of dying in a car crash is about two lakh times higher than in a plane crash.
Aviation’s best known safety measurement is the US statistical tracking of accidents per one lakh hours of flight, which has dropped sharply from 46.68 in the 1950s to 0.11 in 2022, albeit with a small uptick since then. There are many contributors to this stellar track record, including transformative developments in technology. For instance, very rarely do engine failures contribute to air accidents anymore. That is because the failure rates of modern jet engines have become infinitesimally small.
Imaging: Deni Lal
Sadly, the biggest cause of aviation incidents is invariably human error, almost always resulting from a chain of events and the compounding of many small mistakes, rather than single, big, catastrophic errors.
For long, India’s approach to air safety had been to double down on more regulations, often as a knee-jerk reaction after an accident or safety incident. Of course, all countries have seen increased regulations over the decades, in tandem with the guidelines of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
But member nations are permitted to impose even more stringent domestic rules than ICAO itself stipulates, and of course Indian civil servants’ deep love for red tape was able to express itself extravagantly. The result was an overload of cumbersome, often redundant regulations, far more than other ICAO nations. Indian regulations also have a maximalist approach, imposing the same high-level requirements on individual small aircraft that are only really appropriate for very large commercial fleets.
There have been innumerable examples of copious paperwork required by pilots, engineers and administrators in India, which often increases risks instead of improving safety. It stems from an attitude of insulating stakeholders from future blame, when what is actually required are simplified rules along with strict enforcement.
Such onerous and unnecessary regulations can sometimes lead to the temptation to skirt around and even blatantly violate them. In most other sectors, for instance in the storied efforts to make India business friendly, regulations have been dramatically streamlined. Much red tape has given way to simplified compliance regimes, with an emphasis on trusting Indian citizens. A similar approach, backed by random checks and the use of technology, is also called for in Indian aviation. In fact, Indian aviation is excelling in areas that are lightly regulated.
A current debate in the US is about whether some recent aviation accidents are a result of the heavy hand of Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives that prioritised racial and gender equity over technical skills in the hiring of air traffic controllers and pilots. India has seen a similar thrust on hiring women in aviation, but our regulatory nudge has a much lighter touch and does not compromise on technical standards.
Over the years, I have noticed the growing numbers of female voices on the airwaves, both among pilots and air traffic controllers. Today India has the highest ratio of female pilots in airlines, at 15 per cent against a global average of only five per cent. In my experience, their confidence and competence is no less, and often better, than their male counterparts. That is indeed heartening.
Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda is National Vice President of the BJP and is an MP in the Lok Sabha.