Lessors should furnish info on aircraft for probes, says AAIB

Aviation regulator DGCA should put in place norms to ensure lessors provide information about their aircraft leased to domestic airlines whenever there is a probe, as per a recommendation by AAIB.

It has been made by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) while submitting its report on an emergency landing incident of a SpiceJet aircraft last year.

The report, which was submitted to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in November 2016, was made public this week.

SpiceJet's Mumbai-Delhi flight, with 158 people on board, had made an emergency landing at the Mumbai airport on March 19, 2016. The A-319 aircraft involved in the incident was wet-leased from Bulgarian operator BH Air.

No one was injured in the incident.

Under DGCA regulations, a domestic airline operator is required to maintain a detailed maintenance and operational information about leased aircraft.

In its report, AAIB said BH Air "did not respond to the request of SpiceJet (the lessee) for incident information that was made after the validity of the wet lease period".

When a plane is taken on wet lease, the lessor also provides crew, maintenance and insurance.

Against this backdrop, the report has recommended that provisions should be there to ensure lessors share information about aircraft whenever required for the investigation purpose.

"Provision should be made in DGCA regulations to ensure the lessor must provide aircraft incident/accident information to the lessee whenever required for incident investigation," it said.

AAIB investigates serious incidents and accidents involving Indian aircraft that are referred to it by the civil aviation ministry.

During the investigation, AAIB found that the leased aircraft had suffered failure of hydraulic system.