The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has begun inspection of the training programme of the beleaguered carrier Jet Airways, a senior regulatory official said on Tuesday.
As per DGCA guidelines, all air operators are required to develop a training programme for their crew and dispatchers. It's also the responsibility of the operator to ensure that its training programme is complete, current, and in compliance with the DGCA guidelines.
"The DGCA has commenced a three-day inspection of Jet Airways's training programme. During the exercise, it will assess all aspects of its [Jet Airways] training programme and also find out whether the airline is in compliance with those norms, which are part of the training manual," a DGCA official told PTI.
The inspections began on Monday and will continue till Thursday, the official added.
Jet Airways, which is controlled by Naresh Goyal, is facing a cash drought and has defaulted on the salary payments to its staff. Jet Airways also did not have a training chief for more than a month, the official claimed.
When contacted, an airline spokesman said such an inspection is a routine affair.
"Senior commander K. Venkat Vinod currently heads our training establishment, having taken it over from Captain Veisheh Oberoi," Jet Airways said in a response to PTI.
The inspection, which comes on the back of a comprehensive financial audit of Jet Airways, assumes significance as off late its pilots have been involved in a spate of incidents, including the mid-air scare that took place last week on a Mumbai-Jaipur flight.
In the mid-air scare, a Jaipur-bound Jet Airways flight carrying 171 people had lost cabin pressure after the crew "forgot" to turn on a control switch, leaving 30 passengers bleeding from the ears and nose and forcing the aircraft to return to Mumbai.
On August 6, DGCA had suspended the flying licence of two Jet Airways pilots for attempting to take off from a taxiway parallel to the runway at the Riyadh airport in Saudi Arabia.
As many as 148 people on board the Mumbai-bound Jet Airways flight had escaped unhurt after the aircraft went off the runway following an aborted take-off from there on August 3, the airline had said.
The pilots aborted the take-off after they were informed about a "barrier" on the runway at a time when the plane was taxiing at 100 knots and veered off the runway due to sudden stopping.
The Saudi aviation authority is also conducting a safety probe into the incident along with India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau.
Again on August 25, a London-bound Jet Airways flight from Delhi carrying 337 passengers had almost taken off without the air traffic control clearance. The incident came to light only on September 5; the airline de-rostered its crew members.
The New Delhi-London flight was asked to abort take-off after it was detected that it had rolled down from the runway for take-off without taking ATC permission. The incident took place on August 25 at the Indira Gandhi International Airport.
Jet Airways had confirmed the aborted take-off.
