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Journalism of Courage
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) will issue a safety advisory pertaining to issues Pratt & Whitney’s geared turbofan engines that have caused grounding of several aircraft by operators IndiGo and GoAir over the last year. The decision was taken at a three-hour marathon meeting between civil aviation ministry officials and representatives of the airlines and Pratt & Whitney to review the situation about the engines.
In the last one month, three IndiGo flights faced incidents where smoke was observed during a flight. On December 23, the same aircraft model operated by IndiGo to Kolkata from Port Blair reportedly had suffered mid-air engine failure. A senior civil aviation ministry official said that five broad issues were identified with the engines of which four were resolved by the engine-maker while the one related to the gearbox was being addressed by the manufacturer. The DGCA directive will be issued early next week, the official said, once the further inputs from airlines, engine manufacturer and the US Federal Aviation Administration were gathered.
The official also said that thus far there was no plan to either order a blanket grounding of the aircraft and the engine, or to direct the airlines to not induct the engines into their fleet.
