The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has identified 51 safety and operational lapses at Air India in its July audit, with the aviation watchdog terming some of these violations as "serious", according to Reuters.
It should be noted that this annual audit was not linked to the fatal flight crash involving a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner in June when 260 people, including those on board and on the ground were killed immediately after taking off from Sardar Vallabhai Patel Airport in Ahmedabad.
What were the safetey lapses found at Air India?
The audit report, which is 11 pages long, was prepared by 10 DGCA inspectors and four other auditors. It poined out that there were seven 'Level 1' breaches, which has to be resolved by July 30. It also listed 44 non-compliances, which should be rectified by August 23.
Investigators are now looking into a possible technical fault in the recent Air India crash in Ahmedabad. The crash involved Flight AI‑171, a Boeing 787, which went down shortly after takeoff on July 15. Early reports suggest there may have been a malfunction in the aircraft’s… pic.twitter.com/7ii6ApKiG5
— THE WEEK (@TheWeekLive) July 17, 2025
DGCA pointed out that in one case, Air India pliots breached flight-duty period limit by 2 hours and 18 minutes. This was a Level 1 non-compliance, according to the audit report.
"This may account to non-consideration of safety risks during approaches to challenging airports," the DGCA audit report said.
"Recurring training gaps" were found in the case of some Boeing 787 and 777 pilots. Air India has 34 Boeing 787s and 23 Boeing 777s in its fleet, according to Flightradar24.
Other violations included using unqualified simulators, inadequate cabin crew deployment, and flaws in rostering system.
The audit report found that Air India's rostering system does not "give a hard alert" when the minimum number of crew is not being deployed on flights. At least four international flights did not have enough cabin crew.
Compared to this, DGCA found 11 safety violations at Air India, including insufficient oxygen on board during multiple international flights for which it was fined $127,000.
