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Debris from Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad on June 12
Dhaka: On June 17, India’s aviation regulator informed Air India that it has found no major safety flaws in the airline’s Dreamliner fleet, as part of its investigation into the recent incident that killed at least 271 people.
However, India’s aviation safety watchdog warned the airline of persistent maintenance shortcomings and coordination lapses that could undermine reliability.
Furthermore, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has asked Air India for the training records of the pilots and dispatcher for the aircraft that crashed last week.
Earlier, DGCA, which conducted in-depth inspections of 24 Dreamliners, raised concerns over delays linked to spare-part shortages and weak internal coordination between engineering, ground handling, and operations teams.
Still, the DGCA said all inspected Dreamliners were compliant with existing aviation safety standards. The DGCA also asked all flying schools to conduct training compliance checks.
The DGCA said the requests were part of a “regulatory” review of the crash, and also sought details of action taken following the watchdog’s audits of Air India in the last few months.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London with 242 people on board began losing height seconds after take-off in Ahmedabad on June 12 before crashing into nearby buildings. Everyone on board was killed, bar a single passenger, along with about 30 on the ground.
Sumeet Sabharwal, who the Indian government has said had 8,200 flying hours of experience and was also an Air India instructor, was the commanding pilot of flight AI171. His co-pilot was Clive Kunder who had 1,100 hours of experience.
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