Pilot alleges he was suspended for raising safety concerns, DGCA begins probe

MUMBAI: An AirAsia India commander, in a clip posted on social media on Monday, alleged that the airline had been violating certain safety norms in order to cut costs.
Capt Gaurav Taneja, who is currently suspended pending inquiry into charges of indiscipline, uploaded a 27 minute youtube clip (in Hindi) on Twitter, titled “Reason behind suspension from my pilot job” . The tweet went viral and the Indian civil aviation regulator announced that it had initiated an investigation into the safety violations pointed out by the pilot. In a statement released late night, AirAsia India said it stands firmly on its value of ‘Safety Always’.
A former IIT-Kharagpur graduate, Capt Taneja, an A320 commander had joined AirAsia India in May 2019 (he was employed with another airline before that). He said that the airline was following certain practices which he found to be detrimental to flight safety. He raised such safety issues regularly on the airline’s official whatsapp group for its pilots and later with higher-ups. In the clip, he spoke about two issues, the first of which was about sick leaves.
Capt Taneja alleged that in the new airline, pilots who availed of a sick leave had to forgo the weekly leave that followed. “The policy discouraged pilots from calling in sick when they are unfit to fly, especially if they had made plans for the day when their weekly off was scheduled. Like attending a relative’s wedding, for instance. Taking a sick leave would mean working on the weekly day off. Since they wouldn’t want to miss the social engagement, they might report to work even when unwell and unfit to handle emergencies,’’ he said.