Air India Faces Scrutiny for Skipping Escape Slide Checks on Airbus Fleet
The aviation regulator in India has been warned by the aviation regulator of India Air India for breaching safety rules following three Airbus (AIR.PA) opened new tab planes took off in spite of having overdue inspections on emergency equipment and because they were slow to fix the problem according to government documents.
The warning notices and the investigation report, both of which were evaluated by Reuters did not appear to be at all connected to the last week's crash on the Air India Boeing (BA.N) opens a new tab on 787-8 plane which caused the deaths of all but one of the passengers and were mailed out days prior to the incident.
"The above cases indicate that aircraft were operated with expired or unverified emergency equipment, which is a violation of standard airworthiness and safety requirements," the DGCA report noted.
Air India "failed to submit timely compliance responses" to shortcomings uncovered in the DGCA Air India notice, "further evidencing weak procedural control and oversight," it said.
Tata Group in 2022 from the government, stated in a the statement the company was "accelerating" verification of all maintenance records, including the unchecked escape slides Air India and that it would complete the verification process in the next few days.
In one case, Air India said, the issue was discovered after the engineer of AI Engineering Services "inadvertently deployed an escape slide during maintenance".
Examining escape slides is "a very serious issue. In case of accident, if they don't open, it can lead to serious injuries," said Vibhuti Singh, who was a former legal expert from the federal government's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau.
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