All Indian private jets have been stopped from flying abroad due to serious concerns about them not complying with international safety requirements. As a result,all international charters by the countrys elite stand grounded since Wednesday. This is the price the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has had to pay to survive the recent round of safety audit by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO),which is learnt to have finally decided after a five-day effort that India can be removed from the category of significant safety concern states. India had been put in this category six months ago and could have been permanently downgraded if it had failed this round of audit which started Monday. The biggest area of concern,flagged in the last audit too,was the safety standards of non-scheduled operators and,thus,the urgency. The DGCA issued two successive orders on Wednesday and Thursday,notifying all non-scheduled operators essentially all private planes and charters that are not part of a regular airline that their permits dont allow them to fly abroad. To do so,these operators will have to apply for fresh certification and the DGCA will conduct a complete reassessment of their safety profile. For international operations,these operators will need to have several other equipment,which we will have to certify. Otherwise these planes will not be allowed to land anywhere abroad, DGCA Arun Mishra told The Indian Express. The order was provoked by a sudden check during the audit process when the team went to hangars of some prominent private operators and on finding them not compliant,even forced the aircraft of a top private company to return from mid-air. This,sources said,triggered a wave of concern as operators realised that many top notch business leaders and politicians would not be able to go abroad on Indian jets,routinely used by the elite and also used as charters. According to sources,they found many of these flights did not have the latest on-board navigation and communication equipment that are now a must for safety compliance in international skies. These broadly relate to the kind of equipment used for maintaining horizontal and vertical distance between aircraft and technical performance of emergency sensors among other aspects. It has now been decided that henceforth,no non-scheduled air operator permit holder shall be permitted to undertake international operations,unless operator meets aforesaid requirements for undertaking such operations, the DGCAs August 21 notification said. The next day,another notification was issued clarifying that non-scheduled operators cannot fly abroad unless the holder of the permit is specifically certified to undertake international operations. It also said that interested operators will now have to apply for certification. There are about 125 non-scheduled operators in the country and of these,officials said,about 44 regularly fly abroad.
