Indian Airlines purchased faulty aircrafts rejected by Qatar Airways

Yogesh Mishra

Lucknow: Indian airlines companies, Indigo and GoAir, are so careless about the lives of people that they had been flying the same Airbus A320 aircrafts which were outright rejected by Qatar Airways for not meeting the flying standards.

The Qatar-based airline had cited inefficiency of aircraft's engine, made by an American company, for rejecting the deal.

Incidentally, the Indian aircrafts having complaints of mid-air engine failure are the same aircrafts which were rejected by the Qatar Airways in the past.

Earlier in the day on Tuesday, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) also denied permission of flying to 11 Airbus A320 aircrafts due to having faulty engines. Eight of these aircrafts belong to Indigo while three are of GoAir.

DGCA had to take the call on these aircrafts following the mid-air engine failure during Lucknow-Ahmedabad flight. Generally, the aircrafts carry engines of Rolls Royce, Neo and Pratt & Whitney companies.

A total of 69 mid-air engine failures were reported during the past year and significantly all of those aircrafts carried America-made engines. DGCA, however, has only confirmed one mid-air engine failure and 11 flight cancellations owing to faulty engines.

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GoAir and Indigo are the only two Indian airlines which carry the Pratt & Whitney company engine while Airbus 320 of Air India and Vistara possess CFM Leap-1 engines. Interestingly, Indigo and GoAir Airlines have also ordered 100 aircrafts of the same engine.

As per the norms, DGCA issues yearly Certificate of Air Worthiness after checking the engine quality of each and every aircraft. Apart from this, engine worthiness certificates are issued in every 24 hours for each aircraft which is called 'extended engine checking'. This checking is done within 30 minutes of one aircraft landing at any airport before flying for another destination.

Significantly, a surprise check is carried out by DGCA, which should be a permanent feature before allowing any flight to take off.

Pilot Captain Subhash Ojha says, "DGCA should strengthen the security measures for flight safety and only trained and expert pilots should be allowed to land at the critical airports." It is worth mentioning that some pilots are especially trained for landing at the critical airports.