Plane wedding ceremony: DGCA must act, say experts
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The DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) must punish SpiceJet for the mid-air wedding ceremony on Sunday over Madurai as a substitute of scapegoating pilots and cabin crew who had been solely following the directions given to them by their airline, say aviation security experts.
“The wedding party onboard SpiceJet’s plane could not have been organised without the full knowledge of the company. It was a pre-planned flight, which involved a route that had to be specially programmed, and included manual orbitting over Tenkasi,” stated aviation security knowledgeable Captain Mohan Ranganathan.
“The special route taken by the pilots indicates they had specific instructions from the operations team in the airline. For the company to say they didn’t know there were going to be rituals performed onboard is a pure lie,” Mr. Ranganathan famous.
‘Biggest violation’
A former DGCA official, who has overseen flight questions of safety, stated,“The biggest violation by the airline is allowing a wedding group of more than 160 people when wedding events of more than 50 are banned by the State.”
SpiceJet on Monday stated a journey agent in Madurai chartered a aircraft for a put up wedding ceremony “joy ride” and it had denied permission for conducting any exercise onboard in addition to briefed its shopper on COVID-19 protocols to be adopted. The DGCA has derostered the aircraft crew and ordered an in depth investigation into the incident for violation of COVID-19 protocols. The photographs viral on social media present the bride and groom exchanging garlands in a packed plane, carrying greater than 160 passengers.
However, not one of the passengers may be seen carrying face visors and PPE fits, that are obligatory for passengers occupying the center seats.
‘Special instructions?’
The ex-DGCA official stated, “The DGCA has repeatedly warned airlines that passengers violating COVID-19 protocols must be offloaded and put on no-fly list. If neither the cabin crew nor pilots took action against the passengers, there is a need to probe whether they had special instructions to look the other way.”
Experts additionally argue that the incident highlights the shortage of correct oversight on chartered flights.
“The rules and protocols that apply for regular passenger flights are often not enforced for non-scheduled or chartered operations. There are many loopholes. It is likely that the airline will be let off without any penalty under the same excuse,” the previous DGCA official noticed.
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