NEW DELHI, March 21: India’s Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Monday put the country’s Boeing 737 fleet on “enhanced surveillance” after a China Eastern Airlines aircraft of the same make crashed on Monday in which all the 132 occupants including 123 passengers and nine crew members are feared dead. The DGCA chief Arun Kumar said.
Three Indian carriers — SpiceJet, Vistara and Air India Express — have Boeing 737 aircraft in their fleet. When asked what steps the DGCA was taking following Monday’s crash in China, Kumar said “Flight safety is serious business and we are closely studying the situation. In the interim, we are focusing on enhanced surveillance of our 737 fleet.”
Boeing 737 Max aircraft is an advanced version of Boeing 737-800 and both belong to the 737 series. The US-based aircraft manufacturer of Boeing was not immediately available for comment on the Chinese crash. Two Boeing 737 Max aircraft were involved in accidents in the six month period between October 2018 and March 2019, killing a total of 346 people. Following these two accidents, the DGCA had banned Boeing 737 Max planes in India in March 2019. After Boeing made necessary software rectifications to the satisfaction of the DGCA, the ban on the aircraft’s commercial operations was lifted after 27 months in August last year.
(Manas Dasgupta)