DGCA misses own deadline on Mangalore crash report

DGCA misses own deadline on Mangalore crash report

Mangalore Today News Network

Mumbai, July 12: What happens when Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) officials violate their own rules? Nothing. It’s been over a month and a half after Mangalore air crash and no preliminary investigation report has been released yet, though the country has a rule that puts a 10-day deadline for filing one. Little wonder, then that the rule concerning accident/incident investigation is hardly known in the aviation industry as it has almost always been violated.

According to Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) Section 5 (Air Safety), Series C, Part I issued on 13 October 2006, "preliminary report by the inspector of accidents/inquiry officer should be finalized within 10 days of the accident." The CAR says the preliminary report should be in the format provided by International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Going by CAR, the deadline for submitting the preliminary investigation report for the May 22 Air India Express Mangalore aircrash was June 2.

On Friday, S N Dwivedi, secretary to the court of inquiry formed to investigate the Mangalore air tragedy, who is also director of airworthiness, DGCA, said the information uploaded on the ministry of civil aviation’s website under the title "initial investigation report" was not the preliminary investigation report. "It was only put up to keep the public informed about the progress of the investigation," he said. It is not known when the country will see a preliminary report on Mangalore tragedy.

There is a strong reason why ICAO puts an early deadline for such a report. "The preliminary report should say whether any safety hazard, either human factor, aircraft factor and/or any other relevant factor is prima facie evident during the early stages of investigation," says the 2006 DGCA CAR.
TOI