SpiceJet engineer killed during aircraft maintenance was working without supervision: DGCA panel

SpiceJet engineer Rohit Pandey, who died at the Kolkata airport on July 9 after getting stuck in the flaps of a plane’s landing gear door, was untrained and working without any supervision, a DGCA committee has found.

Pandey, 22, was killed after he got stuck between the hydraulic door flaps of the main landing gear of an aircraft during maintenance at the airport, the airline had said.

“The report of the committee has been received and it has pointed out that the trainee (engineer) was not trained and was carrying out work on the aircraft without any supervision by a trained or licensed engineer,” a source said on Friday.

“The committee in its report has mentioned other contributing factors to the fatal incident, which include lack of training, unsupervised maintenance by ‘unlicensed and unauthorised’ personnel and non-adherence to basic maintenance practices,” the source said.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) would take action against those responsible for the incident, the source said.

The regulator would also be taking action to address the ‘shortcomings’ observed during the incident, the source added.

The committee found that the aircraft operating flight SG-3218 on July 9 at Kolkata-Silchar sector had taxied out from apron at 3.35 pm and returned to bay number 32 at 3.55 pm due to snag in Yaw Damper unit.

The Yaw Damper unit is a device found in the aircraft and is used to dampen the oscillations of the plane on vertical axis.

“The aircraft was parked for trouble shooting and rectification. The rectification could not be completed by licensed engineers (AMEs) during the day shift and the task was carried forward for rectification by the engineers during the night shift,” the DGCA panel found, according to the source.

The committee also found that during this time, the AME, while also attending to another snag on the same aircraft, pressurised the plane’s hydraulic systems to check the movement of flaps and spoilers in the landing gear.

“On pressurisation of the hydraulic system, the right hand landing gear door closed, resulting in the trapping of Pandey who was carrying out layover inspection inside the right hand main wheel aft door, which is towards the tail side of the plane,” the panel found, according to the source.

According to the committee’s report, the source said, Pandey was taken out by cutting the doors and was declared dead by the attending doctor.