Federal Aviation Administration to conduct DGCA audit this month

The Federal Aviation Administration will be carrying out an audit of Indian regulator DGCA starting from July third week, a senior official said.

The exercise by the US aviation watchdog would also come at a time when the country saw a deadly chartered plane crash that snuffed out five lives last week.

The team from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is arriving here on July 15. The audit would commence from July 16 and go on till July 20, a senior DGCA official told PTI.

According to the official, the audit would cover three key areas -- operations, airworthiness and pilots' licensing mechanism.

The FAA audit comes months after a comprehensive safety oversight audit by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in November last year.

Since 2013, this would be the third audit of the domestic aviation regulator by the FAA. In 2013, the American regulator had downgraded the safety ranking of the Indian aviation sector and it was restored only in 2015.

The FAA, in 2013, had downgraded following failure of the Directorate General Civil Aviation (DGCA) to meet the international safety norms.

India is one of the fastest growing aviation markets in the world and most of the domestic carriers have embarked on ambitious expansion plans, including placing orders for a large number of aircraft.