Parl panel summons Civil Aviation Secy-OxBig News Network

In a move to address mounting civil aviation safety concerns, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, chaired by Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Jha (JDU), has summoned Civil Aviation Secretary Samir Kumar Sinha on July 8.

According to a notice by the Deputy Secretary, Rajya Sabha, the agenda of the meeting was “Overall review of safety in the civil aviation sector”.

The hearing will be conducted on July 8, nearly a month after the tragic crash of the Air India Boeing Dreamliner (Flight AI 171) near Ahmedabad on June 12 that claimed the lives of 241 people aboard and more than two dozen on the ground, making it one of India’s worst aviation disasters in recent memory.

According to sources, the key focus would be the Boeing 787-8’s acquisition and maintenance history dating back to its original purchase by the government-run Air India.

The panel intends to scrutinise why this aircraft was preferred over others, how it was maintained over the years and whether regulatory gaps contributed to the incident.

“Discussions could span a range of issues, such as aircraft procurement history, maintenance regimes, regulatory oversight and pilot fitness,” the sources said.

With the DGCA having already removed three senior Air India officials from the flight crew scheduling roles and initiated internal disciplinary proceedings, the panel is expected to delve deeper into systemic gaps in airline operations and governance.

Officials confirmed that the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has extracted data from the black boxes at its Delhi lab, aided by US NTSB specialists, providing crucial insights for both the probe and committee deliberations.

The Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and Flight Data Recorder (FDR), commonly known as black boxes, were retrieved during debris removal operations on June 13 and June 16.

“Both devices were kept under 24-hour police protection and continuous CCTV surveillance in Ahmedabad before being flown to Delhi on June 24 by an Indian Air Force aircraft,” an official said.

“That evening, technical experts from the AAIB and the NTSB began extracting data. The crash-protected memory module from the front unit was safely accessed, and the data was successfully downloaded the following day,” the official said. The analysis of the CVR and FDR recordings is now in progress.

According to the official, the investigators were working to reconstruct the chain of events that led to the tragedy and to identify contributing factors that could lead to safety measures in the future.