NEW DELHI: In any other country, an Indian pilot says, the director of Vayudoot domestic airlines “would be behind bars.”
The pilot told The Statesman newspaper yesterday that the seven year old airline “is a time bomb” in which profit is the only consideration and both aircraft and pilots are pushed far beyond the boundaries of their endurance
The accusation echoes similar charges against the Government owned domestic carrier, Indian Airlines, before Wednesday’s two air crashes that killed 164 people.
A 30 year old propeller driven Fokker Friendship of the Vayudoot line smashed into a hill in a remote northeastern India, and an Indian Airlines Boeing 737 clipped several trees and a high tension wire before crashing 4.5 kilometers from the runway of Ahmedabad airport.
Neither tragedy has been explained, but the Indian Airlines crash followed serious allegations in a national magazine about its shoddy safety practices. And the dual accidents have sparked several revelations about both domestic carriers.
The article said Vayudoot’s log books often are manipulated so that an hour of flying time is recorded as 30 minutes. Frequency of maintenance is therefore halved while appearing on paper to be more extensive than is actually the case.
Vayudoot pilots are reportedly “fresh recruits from flying clubs, or retired…pilots or those whom the other two (airlines) would not have,”
After 11 months of training, the pilot log more than twice as many flying hours a year as their Indian Airlines counterparts often in the most remote and difficult flying areas of the country.
The flight recorder from the Indian Airlines crash at Ahmedabad has been transported to New Delhi.
Investigators are baffled at why the Boeing was only 15 meters from the ground four kilometers from the runway, when, experts say, it should have been between 45 and 60 meters high.
The plane apparently hit the top of tree, veered into another tree, then ripped through the high tension wire before finally exploding and breaking into four pieces.
The United News of India reported yesterday that the Boeing that crashed in Ahmedabad had been grounded overnight Monday because of “engine power snags.” It flew to Bombay on Tuesday and made two more flights before its pre-dawn trip to Ahmedabad.
A high-ranking Indian Airlines official said the problem had been corrected, but several of that airline’s pilot said it was “the practice…to fly an aircraft, despite snags” lest they face “disciplinary action.”
The latest issue of India Today magazine said that pilots routinely skip weather and air-traffic control briefings and that maintenance is neglected because of extreme overuse of the airline’s 27 aircraft.
The report, published three days before the crashes, also said doctors had signed stacks of pre-flight test reports so pilots could fly without undergoing the medical tests mandatory in most countries.
Yesterday’s edition of The Statesman says safety standards at Vayudoot are far below even those of the government run carrier.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 28, 1988
