 "AI fleet, engineering bases under DGCA lens after fire mishaps")
This comes in the wake of two fire incidents on Air India flights last week. According to sources, the DGCA will thoroughly check the status of the fleet and spares.
The inspection will be conducted at the airline’s engineering bases at Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata.
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Last Tuesday, the tail pipe of an Air India Jaipur-Mumbai aircraft had caught fire at the Mumbai airport.
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“Fire was observed in the right engine tail pipe of the Jaipur-Mumbai flight of Air India,” DGCA sources said.
All the passengers were safely evacuated.
This happened a day after a Khajuraho-Delhi Air India flight made an emergency landing at the Delhi airport due to hosepipe failure. Around 145 passengers were evacuated after smoke was spotted in the aircraft’s wheel and five passengers were hurt.
DGCA sources said there was no procedural fault during evacuation on the part of the airline. DGCA has referred the matter to Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau.
Sources said the record of the entire Air India fleet (109 aircraft) will be checked.
After these incidents, the focus has turned on Air India’s ageing fleet of Airbus A320s. Of the 20 A320s, six have been in service for 26 years and seven for 21 years.
However, the Air India management is of the view that the incidents have no link to the ageing fleet as there are 280 A320 aircraft of various international airlines in service, which are older than 20 years.
The airline has sought the DGCA’s permission to use three of its A320s for longer than their operational life of 48,000 flight cycles and 60,000 flight hours.