India’s aviation regulator DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) has suspended four of its officials over the IndiGo flight cancellations fiasco. As per reports, Four Flight Operations Inspectors (FOI)s, are senior officials in the DGCA who are responsible for flight regulations and have oversight on civilian flight operations in the country.
The sacked officials are consultant Rish Raj Chatterjee, SFO Seema Jhamnani, consultant Anil Kumar Pokhriyal, and consultant Priyam Kaushik.
Indian Express reported that these officers are responsible for ensuring aviation safety through inspections, audits and certification of airlines and personnel, including pilots and cabin crew.
IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers and COO Isidre Porqueras have been asked to appear before the DGCA’s investigation panel again at 2 pm on Friday.
As per reports, DGCA officials were deployed at IndiGo headquarters on Thursday, questioning CEO Elbers and other senior staff and monitoring operations. The government body has formed a four-member committee to investigate the entire disruption incident, its reasons and aftermath, to find out causes behind the nation-wide breakdown of flight operations in India’s largest airline that affected thousands of passengers over several days.
The four-member committee has Joint Director General Sanjay Brahamane, Deputy Director General Amit Gupta, senior FOI Kapil Manglik and FOI Lokesh Rampal.
