Daughter of DGCA No. 2 got licence from school with no plane

MUMBAI: They did not have even a single aircraft at their airport base, neither did they have a classroom or a hangar there, but in 2007, for some reason, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) was benevolent enough to grant Raipur-based Touchwood Aviation the approval to start flying training for Commercial Pilot License (CPL) students. 

A month after it started, Rashmi Sharan, the daughter of A K Sharan, joint director general ofDGCA and its number two man, joined the school. Back then, Sharan was the deputy director general (training and licensing), the department which grants approval to flying training organisations. A year after Rashmi got her license and moved out, the school shut down. 

The case of Touchwood Aviation is an intriguing one as it is perhaps the only flying school in Indiato ever get a Flight Training Organisation approval even before it could position an aircraft at its base. It was also allowed to function, though it did not have the mandatory classroom or hangar at its airport base. 

So what are the violations here? 

1. According to Flying Training Circular (No 2/2005) issued by DGCA on May 2, 2005, flying schools/clubs "should have a minimum of three serviceable aircraft", among other requirements, to get an approval to start flying training for CPL students. At any given point of time, if the aircraft fleet falls below three, then the approval for training CPL students will be withdrawn, it states. 

"After the circular came into effect, the DGCA inspected all 16 flying schools in India at that time and flying schools with one or two aircraft scurried to increase their fleet to three," said an aviation source adding that the norms were adhered to in the annual inspections then on. 

When Touchwood Aviation was granted the Flying Training Approval in 2007, this circular, very much in effect — as it is today — was sidelined to grant the approval fraudulently. The proof of violation appears in the hand-written inspection report, dated 24 August 2007 (TOI has a copy) which grants Flight Training Approval to Touchwood. 

It was filed by Mohan Chandran, an official with Aerodrome Standards, Mumbai, after visiting Touchwood's Raipur facility and states that the school is yet to have an aircraft positioned at its base. Said an aviation source: "I do not know of any instance in India, where a flying school got an approval to start training even before it could position the aircraft and build a hangar." 

He added: "Let alone get an approval, the DGCA officials from the flying training department will not even come to inspect the school if the hangar and aircraft are not ready. Getting an approval only comes after site inspection," he added. 

2. How did the DGCA office, find ground facilities "satisfactory", when there was none at the airport base? Apart from the above-mentioned circular, Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR), Section 7, Series D which pertains to approval of flying training instutites also states that a flying school's airport base should mandatorily have aircraft hangar, briefing room, waiting room, etc, for student use. 

But Touchwood Aviation had their office, briefing room, etc, at a place located about 10km from Raipur airport. They did not have any facility at the airport. "Students were ferried to the airport every morning and back in the evening. They would wait on open tarmac through the day for their turn to fly," said a source. 

The issue is not just of inconvenience. Having a briefing room on site is regarded as essential. For instance, before and after every flight, a student undergoes a briefing and a de-briefing session in the classroom. "In a briefing lesson, the flight to be undertaken would be discussed and instructions given so that the teacher and student do not waste time in the cockpit on lessons that can be given when on ground," said an instructor. 

"After a flight, the student is de-briefed and the mistakes and shortcomings are pointed out and instructions given to rectify them," he added. In case of Touchwood, there was no room in the airport for the de-briefing sessions, post flight. 

3. DGCA's flying training department is entrusted with the job of inspecting schools to grant/renew flying training approval. So why did the department waive all the norms for Touchwood? "Since Touchwood had not positioned any aircraft at its base or have a hangar, officials from the DGCA's flying training department refused to inspect the school," said an aviation source. 

Sharan, the then deputy director general (training and licensing), sent Chandran, an official from the aerodrome standards department in Mumbai, to do the Touchwood inspection, the source added. Based on the inspection report filed by Chandran, Touchwood was given an approval for six months, which was later renewed. 

Director General Bharat Bhushan said that he was looking into the case. Manjit Singh, owner of Touchwood Aviation, said that nine students, including Rashmi Sharan, completed their CPL from his school. It shut down in August 2009. Rashmi did her training between September 24, 2007 and October 7, 2008. 

"Airports Authority of India, the owner of Raipur airport, asked Touchwood to pay 13% of the gross turnover since the time of starting school. This made us economically unviable," Singh said about the closure of the school. He confirmed that no hangar space was allotted by AAI at Raipur airport. "All scheduled and periodic maintenance was done in the hangar at Raigarh airport in Chattisgarh," he added. 

Touchwood said that if it gets airport space at rates which are economically viable, it would start operations. But other flying school promoters will vouch that getting a DGCA approval to start a flying training organisation is not an easy task.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Daughter-of-DGCA-No-2-got-licence-from-school-with-no-plane/articleshow/8094783.cms

Airline regulatory body does not have a single pilot on rolls

MUMBAI: It is strange that the organization mandated to regulate the aviation sector doesn't have a single pilot on its rolls. The pilots who work with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation(DGCA) are those employed with airlines and other aviation companies and are paid by respective companies and work part time with DGCA to make up for the regulator's lack of technical experts. 

No wonder that scams which involve incompetent pilots and unscrupulous chief flight instructors take a while to be unearthed. "Nearly 62 out of the 265 permanent personnel (does not include aircraft engineering directorate) that DGCA employs are senior officials and the rest are administrative staff, assistants, clerks, peons, etc," said an aviation source. None has a valid pilot licence. 

To compensate, DGCA appoints consultants and officials on a temporary basis. "The DGCA has 63 consultants appointed on short-term contract basis, including pilots," the source added. For airline-related issues, for instance, DGCA gets help from airline pilots. Though these pilots are members of DGCA's Flight Standard Directorate, they draw their salaries from their respective airlines. 

That this arrangement does not take care of all technical needs is clear from the recent experiences DGCA has had with its investigations. The investigation report on a May 2010 incident onboard a Dubai-Pune Air India Express flight in which the aircraft plunged several feet over the Arabian Sea is a case in point. The commander had left the cockpit to go the washroom when the aircraft pitched down and started plunging. The co-pilot had frozen at the controls. The aircraft regained its straight and level flight several seconds later after the commander took over. The DGCA report said that the aircraft's autopilot remained engaged throughout the uncontrolled descent. "But the autopilot could not have remained engaged when the aircraft started plunging. 

"Also with the amount of force applied by the commander to bring the nose back to level, the autopilot would have surely disengaged," says Captain M Ranganathan, adding that this was just one of the several flaws in the report. In the Kingfisher Airlines case where an aircraft overshot theMumbai airport runway in 2009, the DGCA investigation team drew a wrong conclusion. "It was a clear case of skidding, though the DGCA report stated another reason," says Ranganathan. Both the investigation reports were put online on its website by DGCA only to find pilots pointing out technical flaws. Both the reports were removed for amendments. 

Another department that could do with a pilot is the DGCA's Flying Training directorate. The DGCA website states that it has a senior pilot on its roll. "But the said personnel does not hold a valid pilot licence. He was formerly employed with the agriculture department of the government and so was from a different field altogether," said an aviation source. "The training imparted by flying clubs cannot be monitored as the DGCA has no permanent employee who has the technical knowledge to handle that," he adds. 

A case in point is that of the Central Examination Organization of the DGCA. It sets question papers for pilot licence exams. "Question paper for pilots are set by graduates and engineers. It is not a healthy practice," said a DGCA official.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Airline-regulatory-body-does-not-have-a-single-pilot-on-rolls/articleshow/7870539.cms

'Fake pilots' may have been conned themselves

NEW DELHI: Fake commanders who fudged marksheets to get to the captain's seat may have been conned themselves. Here's how: co-pilots failing the exam to become commanders are routinely approached by touts with the promise of having their papers "re-evaluated" for the pass mark required. 

And with the DGCA exam database being inaccessible to even its head office, verification is not possible at the time of submission. 

Pilots cough up between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 7 lakh (sometimes as a bank draft) for a package deal — real marksheets with no reds and a Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) licence for commandership. But what the commanders do not realize is that the middlemen may after all be handing them fake marksheets that will show up when checked with the original database. 

The double-con came to light when top aviation officials began probing licences on the directive of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation after a woman pilot repeatedly landing on the nosewheel was found to have forged a marksheet. "A number of industry people have told us middlemen involved in this racket ask the co-pilots to fill up forms for re-evaluation and even take bank drafts to make it look real," said an official connected with the probe. "They are learnt to ask for Rs 5-7 lakh for this task and then (for) getting a licence issued. Co-pilots see this as a foolproof way of doing an illegal thing." 

But what pushes co-pilots to acquire an airline transport pilot licence (ATPL) by fraudulent means, paying a huge "fee" to boot? "By the time a co-pilot is eligible to become commander in terms of number of hours flown, his or her monthly salary is about Rs 2 lakh," said an official. "On becoming commander, the salary doubles to Rs 4 lakh. If someone is not able to pass the ATPL exam, the monetary loss is a whopping Rs 24 lakh annually. So it makes economic sense for such people to pay Rs 5-7 lakh and become a commander as the cost will be recovered in just four months." 

What makes the job easier for the tout and his client alike is that the DGCA has no way of verifying the documents at the time of submission. Marksheets are issued to pilots from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation's central examination office in R K Puram, south Delhi. These have to be submitted, along with other documents, at the DGCA's head office opposite Safdarjung Airport. 

The head office cannot cross-check the documents against the Directorate General of Civil Aviation database because the exam office computers are not part of the intra-network. Not by accident, though. Exam records were kept delinked to prevent hackers from getting through — now working to the benefit of those forging their papers to fly millions across the country and abroad. 

Officials say checks will be put in place now, before licences are issued. "There were some cases where people submitted fake education degrees and we started verifying them with the universities. Now, we are devising way to cross-check the marksheets submitted for issuance of licences with original records. This will be done even if it means a delay of a couple of days in the licence process," said a senior official.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Fake-pilots-may-have-been-conned-themselves/articleshow/7696671.cms

Shri Handique Approves Rs. 50 Crore for Instrument Landing System at Lengpui Airport in Aizwal

The Union Minister of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), Shri B.K. Handique, has approved an amount of Rs.50.93 Crores for installation of the Instrument Landing System (ILS) at the Lengpui Airport in Aizwal, Mizoram. The Ministry has approved an amount of Rs.50.93 Crores for installation of the ILS Equipment. The North Eastern Council (NEC) has so far sanctioned a quantum of Rs.19.42 Crores towards the infrastructure development of the Airport.

At a meeting with officials from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) including Director General Civil Aviation Mr.E.K Bharat Bhushan, Airports Authority of India (AAI), Ministry of DoNER and the Government of Mizoram in New Delhi recently, Shri Handique said that his Ministry is committed towards strengthening Airport Infrastructure for various Airports in the Region with special focus on Airports like Lengpui which falls in a landlocked state like Mizoram. Immediate steps need to be taken to mitigate topographic obstructions at the Lengpui Airport for clearance of the Instrument Landing System, which in turn will increase the frequency of regular flights to and from Mizoram. Shri Handique said that after the implementation of the system, this will be the first airport offering regular flights to and from the state of Mizoram. Presently, there are no regular flights to Mizoram due to issues related to bad terrain, Civil Aviation Security concerns and lack of ILS.

In the meeting the DGCA, AAI and the Government of Mizoram reached an understanding to complete the Civil Works pertaining to the ILS at Lengpui Airport within 31st March, 2011. The DGCA is likely to give clearance for the ILS pursuant to which a team of Pilots will be trained to operate to and from the Airport. The training will commence two days after completion

The Ministry of DoNER has also expedited some pending airport projects including the recently sanctioned project for upgradation and operationalisation of airport at Tezu, Arunachal Pradesh at a total cost of Rs.79 Crores. Arrangements about air services in the NER with Alliance Air have been renewed for two more years, i.e. up to December 2011 and a more lasting and viable solution to the vexing problem of intra regional connectivity is being examined by the Ministry. North Eastern Council (NEC) is sponsoring through Ministry of Civil Aviation a comprehensive study for Air Connectivity of the region.

Source: Print Release