Two fatal crashes involving small aircraft operated by charter flight operators have raised serious concerns and questions over the state of aviation safety in India, particularly in the charter aviation segment. On January 28, a Learjet 45 aircraft crashed as it attempted to land in Baramati, killing Maharashtra’s then deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and four others. Less than a month later, on Monday (February 23), a chartered aircraft operating as an air ambulance from Ranchi to Delhi crashed in Jharkhand’s Chatra district, killing all seven persons on board.While serious accidents involving scheduled commercial airlines—like the tragic crash of Air India flight AI 171 last year—are extremely rare in India, the same cannot be said about small aircraft operations by non-scheduled operators (NSOPs)—service providers that provide on-demand and non-regular air transport services like charter flights, private jets, and air ambulances. Accidents in this segment are not as infrequent, and time and again, such tragedies serve as grim reminders about the pressing need to make small aircraft operations in India as safe as those of commercial airlines.Over the past few years, flight safety in NSOP operations has been flagged as an area of concern by aviation safety experts. Weak internal safety oversight, poor maintenance, inadequate risk assessment, and training lapses have been cited by experts as some of the key reasons behind the growing number of incidents involving smaller aircraft. NSOP operations have also come under criticism for ignoring safety issues for commercial considerations or under pressure from VIP clients. But that’s not all there is to it. Regulatory deficiencies, particularly the chronic understaffing at the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), resulting in inadequate oversight from the aviation safety regulator is also seen as a major cause of concern.With the evident rise in incidents involving operations by NSOPs, and particularly in the wake of the January 28 crash that killed Ajit Pawar, the DGCA on Tuesday announced measures to enforce a “zero-tolerance policy” among NSOPs, including stricter oversight and audits, and sterner liability norms and penalties for safety violations. While these measures are much-needed, so is the need to make the regulator itself robust enough for effective and continuous oversight of all segments of aviation operations in India, the world’s third-largest domestic aviation market and also one of the fastest-growing major aviation markets globally.Key factors behind small aircraft safety issues, DGCA’s recent actionA comprehensive review of accident data from the past decade by the DGCA identified “non-adherence to standard operating procedures (SOPs), inadequate flight planning, and training deficiencies” as the primary causative factors in aircraft accidents among NSOPs. Following the review and a meeting with the non-scheduled operators, the aviation safety regulator stressed to them that safety must remain the “absolute priority, superseding all commercial considerations, charter commitments, or VIP movements”. The regulator stressed that the pilots’ decision to divert, delay, or cancel a flight for safety reasons is final and must be respected by operators irrespective of commercial consequences.Also in Explained | Ajit Pawar plane crash: What a recent Parliamentary panel report said about gaps in civil aviation safety frameworkThis stern reminder by the DGCA is not without reason. Over the years, aviation safety experts have highlighted that unlike airline pilots, the pilots operating such on-demand charter flights—at times at short notice—could find themselves being pressured by their VIP or HNI passengers to adhere to the planned schedule and tight timelines, sometimes even pushing flight safety to a lower priority. Also, the management of an NSOP itself might pressure the pilots into operating a flight that they are not comfortable operating. In all such instances, the risks can compound if the aircraft is operating to or from a remote airfield with inadequate or no navigational aids and weather data.Story continues below this adOther measures announced by the regulator on Tuesday include increased random cockpit voice recorder (CVR) audits and cross-verification of flight data, fuel records, and technical logs to detect unauthorised operations or falsification of data, and increased monitoring on aircraft maintenance in the NSOP segment, particularly old planes and those undergoing ownership changes. NSOPs will also be required to disclose critical safety information on their websites, including aircraft age, maintenance history, and pilot experience, which would help inform customers about the aircraft they charter. This is crucial, considering many of the small aircraft in operation in India are ageing planes.“Accountable managers and senior leadership will be held personally responsible for systemic non-compliances; safety lapses cannot simply be blamed on pilots…Pilots found violating Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL) or attempting to land below safety minima may face license suspensions of up to five years. Operators failing to meet compliance standards will be penalised, and licences/permits may be suspended,” the DGCA said.The regulator also noted that weather-related accidents are often the result of poor judgment rather than the unpredictability of weather. NSOPs have been mandated to establish real-time weather update systems and ensure strict compliance with established SOPs.Beyond these, there are other issues afflicting India’s NSOP segment that add to the risks, according to experts. These include a persistent shortage and high attrition among aircraft maintenance engineers, experienced pilots, and flight instructors, as large commercial airlines are more lucrative than charter flight operators, most of which are much smaller organisations. Unlike airlines, most NSOPs also don’t have adequate training infrastructure at their disposal for the additional training needs of serving pilots.Need of the hour: Reforming the regulatorStory continues below this adRecent accidents have also underscored the fact that the DGCA’s oversight itself needs to be strengthened for the sake of aviation safety in India, particularly for small aircraft operations that appear far more vulnerable. And experts, and even lawmakers, have been stressing the need to reform the DGCA by granting it more autonomy and funding, and fast-track the hiring to cover the regulator’s shortage of technical staff. If the regulator is overstretched, how will it effectively enforce safety rules and SOPs and maintain a strict vigil?Also Read | ‘Runway not in sight’: The 26 minutes before the plane crash that killed Ajit Pawar, four othersIn August last year, a Parliamentary Standing Committee had warned of serious gaps in India’s civil aviation safety framework. The committee, chaired by JD(U) MP Sanjay Jha, had cautioned that the aviation sector expansion was outpacing oversight capacity and that parts of the non-scheduled sector required tighter scrutiny. While the panel’s report stressed the need for the DGCA to intensify surveillance in this segment through surprise inspections and stricter audit cycles, it also observed that the regulator was “overburdened” and often works in a reactive mode, instead of being proactive, due to manpower shortage and growing responsibilities.As of December, roughly half of the total sanctioned staff strength of 1,630 for the DGCA was empty, as per data presented by the government in Parliament. In many cases, the government is making efforts to even go for hiring technical staff for the DGCA on short-term contracts, although it claims that the shortfall in staff strength has not adversely impacted the regulator’s functioning.But some experts point out that a stretched regulator means that scheduled commercial airlines, which have large-scale operations, would naturally get a lot for attention than the much smaller NSOPs. According to them, this is among the chief reasons why non-adherence to safety norms and protocols tends to slip through the cracks far more in the case of NSOPs than scheduled carriers.Story continues below this adIn its report, the standing committee had recommended a time-bound plan to grant the DGCA full administrative and financial autonomy “to address critical technical staff shortages caused by an ineffective recruitment model”, adding that this problem had been highlighted in the past but was never resolved. The DGCA recruits for technical posts primarily through the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), which can be a long-drawn-out, inflexible, and complicated process as compared to hiring talent directly from the market.According to sources in the know, the DGCA itself is seeking autonomy to be able to freely recruit technical staff, although no decision has been taken so far by the government. The standing committee report of August mentioned the Ministry of Civil Aviation’s (MoCA) stance that direct recruitment by the DGCA not under consideration at the time. Unlike leading aviation safety regulators globally, which are independent bodies, the DGCA is under MoCA’s administrative control, making it susceptible to unnecessary government interference, according to some industry experts.“Autonomy is essential for the regulator to attract talent, set industry-commensurate salaries, and effectively enforce compliance in a rapidly expanding sector,” the parliamentary panel’s report said.