Govt hopeful of clearing FAA audit on back of favourable ICAO assessment

ICAO had in August removed India from list of 13 nations including Angola, Congo, Haiti, Kazakhstan with worst air safety oversight

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is hopeful of clearing the safety audit being conducted by US aviation regulator Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on back of favourable assessment by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) last month.

ICAO had in August removed India from a list of 13 nations including Angola, Congo, Haiti, Kazakhstan with worst air safety oversight after a compliance audit of DGCA’s mechanisms.

“The FAA is conducting an independent audit of air safety mechanisms in India. However, the favourable assessment made by ICAO last month will certainly help us”, said a top official at DGCA.

The FAA is scheduled to brief the DGCA of its findings on Friday.

The FAA audit is significant because if the US aviation regulatory finds any irregularities in its safety audit it could downgrade India. This would mean no new flights by Indian airlines Air India and Jet Airways to the United States.

Currently, while Air India flies to New York and Chicago from Delhi and Mumbai, Jet Airways operates to New York via Brussels.

The ICAO primarily had two concerns related to airworthiness and operations. A corrective action plan (CAP) was drawn up by DGCA after ICAO’s audit in December 2012 and all concerns have now been addressed.

The concern on airworthiness related to approval of major modifications and repairs carried out on foreign manufactured aircraft and registered in India while the concern on operations related to the procedure for grant of Air Operator Permit to non-scheduled operators and flight documentation system of scheduled airlines.

Dedicated teams have been constituted within the DGCA to issue aircraft operators’ certificated (AOCs) to the 44 NSOPs who fly out of India. Processes have been put in place to check their airworthiness and approve applications within 15 days. Earlier, NSOPs had to only inform the DGCA to fly out of India.

A three member ICAO Team visited India from 19-23 August, 2013 for the validation of the CAP implementation. During the visit, the team examined all documentary evidences at DGCA headquarters and regional offices at Delhi and Mumbai. As part of the validation process, the team also visited organizations to ascertain the safety oversight capability of DGCA with respect to implementation of CAP.

State-owned Air India can commence operations of Dreamliners to Japan with the ICAO saying it no longer sees any “significant safety concerns” (SSCs) in India’s airline operations.

A senior official in the ministry of civil aviation said, “The Japan Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB) had said Air India cannot switch aircraft type and replace Boeing 777-ER with more fuel-efficient Dreamliners because of the two SSCs raised by ICAO in their audit in December last year. These have now been addressed.