The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has suspended the licence of a SpiceJet pilot for six months for a mid-flight incident in May which resulted in injuries to a few people onboard during air turbulence.
“The decision is based on our enquiry. A separate enquiry by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau is underway. The licence of the pilot-in-command has been suspended for six months,” said a DGCA official.
Pilot sources have maintained that the incident was due to a faulty weather radar on the aircraft.
Read: Explained | The SpiceJet ‘accident’
When asked about the grounds for the action against the pilot, a DGCA source said, “We have explained the reasons in great detail in the order issued to the pilot. There was a delay in turning on the seat belt sign at the time of the turbulence. He also flew the plane from Durgapur to Kolkata instead of grounding it following an accident and operated the flight despite being informed that the radar had a glitch.”
On May 1, a SpiceJet flight between Mumbai to Durgapur encountered severe turbulence during descent which resulted in 14 passengers and three cabin crew members getting injured in the incident. The injuries were related to head, spine, shoulder and face. Some of them were also admitted to the ICU. The incident was classified as an accident, the DGCA had said.
The incident led to the DGCA ordering a fleet-wide inspection for SpiceJet due to concerns over poor maintenance standards. Last month, the regulator also served a show-cause notice and ordered the airline to only fly 50% of its approved flights and placed it under enhanced surveillance because of degraded safety standards.
In a separate case, the DGCA also suspended the licence of a pilot of a charter plane flying from Bokaro to Ranchi for falsely declaring low fuel to get priority landing. The incident happened in October last year.
