Post 787 fire, UK air accident investigator recommends review of all Lithium powered ELTs on all aircraft

by Devesh Agarwal The United Kingdom’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) has issued a special bulletin (read PDF here) on the fire that broke out on Ethiopian Airline’s Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner ET-AOP, parked at London’s Heathrow airport last Friday. In the report, the AAIB said the fire occurred in the rear upper fuselage where the…

Comptroller and Auditor General of India report on PPP at Delhi Airport

In a report titled “Implementation of Public Private Partnership, Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi” the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has found faults in almost every step of implementation of the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model in the brownfield privatisation of New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA). While acknowledging the PPP was…

New terminal at Lucknow airport found defective

A note from the Press Information Bureau of India about Lucknow airport, which is incidentally named after the father of present civil aviation minister Ajit Singh. The airport is owned and operated by the Airports Authority of India. Taking a serious note of the complaints of irregularities in the construction of the New Terminal Building…

Opinion: DGCA fiasco highlights need to resolve conflicts of interests in civil aviation ministry

The abrupt removal of India’s chief civil aviation regulator, the Director General of Civil Aviation, Mr. E.K. Bharat Bhushan, earlier this month, once again brings forth the cross-workings within the ministry of civil aviation, caused by contradictory roles, many of which are driven by political agendas, and the urgent need to re-structure this mammoth ministry…

BEA’s final report on the crash of Air France AF-447

Image courtesy BEA France’s Bureau of Investigations and Analysis’ (BEA) submitted its final report on the crash of Air France flight AF-447 flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, killing all 228 passengers and crew on-board. The final report essentially re-states what has already been released till date. The crash commenced with ice crystals blocking…