A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Delhi High Court asking the aviation regulator DGCA to ground the entire fleet of Airbus A320 neo following the engine malfunction. The PIL will come up for hearing on Friday. The petitioner, Yeshwant Shenoy, who is a lawyer on aviation security law, argued that DGCA has deliberately bend laws by not grounding entire fleet even though there has been incidents with the other planes too. The PIL is filed by Shenoy on the grounds that the DGCA "willfully and deliberately compromised Aviation safety by not complying with the Aircraft Act, 1934" and the rules made there under and also violated their own Civil Aviation Requirements (CARs). The PIL is in the wake of DGCA grounding 11 Airbus A320 neo aircraft last week, due to recurring engine malfunction. Of the 11 aircraft, eight belong to IndiGo and three to GoAir. The malfunction has occurred with a certain sub-population of engines manufactured by Pratt & Whitney. The problem stems from a component in the engine that can show early signs of wear, and is located in an area that must withstand high pressure. "The DGCA after having full knowledge of defective engines continued to allow them to operate thereby threatening aviation safety and consequently the lives of people. The DGCA has deliberately and intentionally allowed these aircrafts to fly with defective engines fully knowing that there are too many obstacles around all airports in the country and more particularly the major airports like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkatta, Hyderabad, Bangalore," said the PIL submission made by Shenoy. When contacted, DGCA boss BS Bhullar said that DGCA in consultation with global regulators have come to the consensus that problem is with only a sub type of the Pratt and Whitney engines and not all engines of planes. DGCA said at present, there are 45 A320neos (32 with IndiGo and 13 with Go Air) fitted with P&W 1100 engines. As on date, 14 A320neos with these operators fitted with engines beyond ESN 450 (03 with both engines affected and 11 with one engine affected) have been grounded. Remaining 31 A320neos with IndiGo and GoAir are fully operational and there is no safety issue in them. The PIL submission goes on to list the threats that these engine failure pose on the flyers.
Shenoy has alleged in the PIL that the DGCA or the Air Operators have colluded to threaten aviation safety and consequently human lives to protect the commercial interests of the airline companies. The PIL was reviewed by Business Standard.
With the grounding of 14 aircraft so far related to the engine snag, the airlines will be forced to cancel few flights. While the airlines did not provide numbers, sources said that around 90 flights would be cancelled due to the disruption. IndiGo said it would accommodate passengers in other aircraft. According to a Bloomberg report, European Aviation Safety Regulator (EASA) said that DGCA's decision of grounding the 11 planes with new series engines was unilateral and they will not follow this step. The petition has also questioned the number of flights grounded by the DGCA citing fudging of data by the aviation regulator. “The DGCA has a history of “fudging' safety records and the Petitioner has reason to believe that the DGCA is doing it in the instant case. The rebuttal given by the DGCA points out to 69 engine replacements in that a total number of 73 engines are removed. Now, by the DGCA rebuttal, Indigo has a total fleet of 32 A320neos. This means it can have a maximum of 64 engines. How could 73 engines be removed?” said the PIL.
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