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For the seventh time in the last one month, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) grounded two aircraft - one eachof of Bajaj Auto Limited's aviation arm and of Bangalore-based real estate firm Sobha Puravankara for gross safety violations which included illicit carriage of liquor on-board domestic flights.
Sources in the DGCA informed while the G200 Gulfstream aircraft (VT-SNP) registered with Sobha Puravankara had on-board a full-fledged bar, an unsealed bottle of liquor wasfound in the Bombardier Global 5,000 Bajaj Auto aircraft (VT-BAJ).
Theviolations were found in a random inspection carried out by the regulator atthe Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport on Saturday.As source inthe know said, "The aircraft registered with Sobha Puravankara had on-board afull-fledged bar. This has raised serious security concerns. How did theymanage to get so much of liquor despite checks at the airport."
The aviation regulator has referred the case to the Bureau of Civil AviationSecurity (BCAS) to investigate how the liquor was taken on board a dA omesticflight when the CISF has to carry out all such checks.
Both the aircraft have been grounded for violating AeronauticalInformation Circular (AIC) 12/1994 which bans serving liquor on board domesticflights and the Delhi Liquor License Rules of 1974, which prohibits any individual travelling from another state to Delhi from carrying more than an unsealed liquorbottle of 750 ml.
While SobhaPuravankara is yet to explain to the safety lapses found by the DGCA, Bajaj Auto has told the regulator that the bottle of liquor was from a Dubai-Chennaiflight on 2 August 2013 which had 12 passengers on-board including actorShahrukh Khan.
"DGCA is in the process of verifying the details as thespecified flight had taken place in August last year. Over the last ninemonths, the operator is claiming that it has had the liquor bottle on-board",the source said. Apart from the violations related to the carriage of liquor, the teamof DGCofficials also found significant technical lapses as both aircraft werenot carrying the mandatory operations manuals as well as Jeppesen manual or thecomprehensive flight (route) guide.
Two lady facilitators and another femaleattendant was found on-board the Shova Puravankara and Bajaj Auto aircraftrespectively, who did not have the training required to be undertaken by cabincrew. Earlier this month, DGCA had grounded 11 pilots and sixcabin crew of GMR Aviation for three months for not clearing the mandatorypre-flight breath analyser tests.
The most recent violation onpart of GMR Aviation was found on April 14, when Rahul Gandhi flew from Delhito Bhubaneshwar in GMR's luxury Falcon 2000-Lx.
Besides, the safety regulator has grounded businessjets registered with Deputy Punjab Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal-promoted Orbit Aviation, with Union Minister for Urban Development Kamal Nath's SpanAir, Business JetsIndia Limited and Reliance Commercial Dealers Limited for flouting specified safety guidelines re-issued for non-scheduled operators in March.
In order to ensure safe operations during the electionseason, the DGCA had on March 24 also issued stringent safety guidelines andthreatened to cancel air operators' permit of business jets and helicoptersthat failed to conform with prescribed norms. The guidelines were reissuedafter the aviation regulator found discrepancy in operations by somenon-scheduled operators.
Taking a grim view of the frequent lapses on part ofNSOPs, the DGCA has decided to step up surveillancecarry out safety inspections on 44 major NSOPs who fly abroad and two aircrafteach of all scheduled domestic airlines by June-end.
