DGCA Grounds Two Air India Pilots After Rostering Goof-Up

New Delhi: Two Air India pilots were grounded by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) following an oversight of the airline’s rostering department, a TOI report stated.

The grounded pilots also included a trainee.

According to the report, the trainee was supposed to do supervised flying of a Mumbai-Riyadh flight on July 9 with a training captain. But, this was not done due to a mix-up and the flight was not operated by the correct complement of crew. On reaching Riyadh, the trainee pilot was supposed to get his supervised line flying form signed by the training pilot. But, as the training pilot fell ill, he was reportedly replaced by a normal pilot by the rostering.

Sources, however, claimed that it wasn’t the fault of the two grounded pilots, who could learn about the mix-up by the scheduling department en route. The other pilot could not have signed the form as he was not a training pilot, the report stated, claiming it was an oversight by the crew management system (CMS).

When the pilots filed a voluntary report about the incident with the base manager, the airline reported it to the regulator.

Sources claimed that the DGCA would examine whose fault was it.

The TOI report further stated that efforts were made to reach the airline for further comments but they couldn’t be reached till the time the report was published.