Air India, which was taken over by the Tata Group in 2022 from the government, said in a statement that it was “accelerating” verification of all maintenance records, including dates of the escape slides, and would complete the process in the coming days.
In one of the cases, Air India said, the issue came to light when an engineer from AI Engineering Services “inadvertently deployed an escape slide during maintenance”.
The DGCA and Airbus did not respond to Reuters queries.
Checks on escape slides are “a very serious issue. In case of accident, if they don’t open, it can lead to serious injuries,” said Vibhuti Singh, a former legal expert at the government’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau.
The DGCA said in its report that the certificates of airworthiness for aircraft that miss mandatory checks were “deemed suspended”.
The warning notices and the report were sent by Animesh Garg, a deputy director of airworthiness in the Indian government, to Air India CEO Campbell Wilson as well as the airline’s continuing airworthiness manager, quality manager and head of planning, the documents showed.
An Indian aviation lawyer said such breaches typically attract monetary and civil penalties on both individual executives and the airline.
Wilson told Reuters last year that global parts shortages were affecting most airlines, but the problem was “more acute” for Air India as its “product is obviously a lot more dated”, with many planes not refreshed since they were delivered in 2010 to 2011.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/air-india-warned-flying-airbus-planes-unchecked-escape-slides-5192181
