The national aviation safety regulator barred 90 SpiceJet pilots from flying the Boeing 737 MAX after it found that they had undergone training for the aircraft at a simulator facility near Delhi where routine surveillance unearthed faults in equipment, mainly pertaining to flight controls, sources told The Indian Express.
“For the moment, we have barred these pilots from flying MAX and they have to retrain successfully for flying MAX. Also, we will take strict action against those found responsible for the lapse,” Arun Kumar, Director General, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), said. SpiceJet is the only airline in India operating the Boeing 737 MAX, which was grounded in the country for over two years following two deadly crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that together killed 346 people.
Notably, specific pilot training for the Boeing 737 MAX was one of the key corrective measures put forth at the time of allowing the aircraft to take to the skies again.
A senior DGCA official told The Indian Express that faults were discovered by the regulator’s inspectors with the “stick shaker” at the simulator facility in Noida. A stick shaker is a mechanical device that warns pilots of an imminent aerodynamic stall by shaking the aircraft’s control yoke violently.
“Boeing has said that they will replace the faulty equipment at the Noida facility but till then, no training can happen for the 737 MAX aircraft,” the official said.
Boeing owns the facility, which was opened in 2020 for training pilots operating the 737 MAX. Boeing in India did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Operationally, the development is unlikely to have an impact on SpiceJet’s operations in the near-term with the airline indicating it has enough spare pilots for Boeing’s bestseller aircraft model.
“SpiceJet has 650 pilots trained on Boeing 737 MAX. DGCA had an observation on the training profile followed for 90 Pilots, and therefore as per the advice of DGCA, SpiceJet has restricted 90 pilots from operating MAX aircraft, until these pilots undergo re-training to the satisfaction of DGCA,” a SpiceJet spokesperson said.
“These pilots continue to remain available for other Boeing 737 aircraft. This restriction does not impact the operations of MAX aircraft whatsoever. SpiceJet currently operates 11 MAX aircraft and about 144 pilots are required to operate these 11 aircraft. Of the 650 trained pilots on the MAX, 560 continue to remain available, which is much more than the current requirement,” the spokesperson said. The aircraft, which was grounded globally in March 2019 following the crashes, resumed operations in December 2020. At the heart of the two crashes, involving Indonesia’s Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines, was a faulty flight handling system called manoeuvring characteristics augmentation system (MCAS).
This system is responsible for pushing the aircraft’s nose down when it senses a high angle of attack that may lead to a stall. If an aircraft’s nose is too high, the plane loses speed and is likely to enter a stall — a state in which it loses flight and can fall from the sky like a stone. In case of the two crashes, the MCAS misread the plane’s angle of attack during the ascent and forced the nose down.
However, it was not just a technical flaw that caused the accidents. During the investigation, several shortcomings were also found out with the processes laid down by Boeing as well as the US Federal Aviation Administration.
Aviation regulators in the US had directed Boeing to revamp the planes and implement new training protocols for pilots. The ban on Boeing 737 MAX was lifted in India in August 2021. Other than SpiceJet, Akasa Air, yet to commence operations, has placed an order for 72 Boeing 737 MAX planes.