The 20-year-old trainee engineer, who lost his life while fixing snags on a SpiceJet aircraft in Kolkata recently, was neither trained to do the job nor was he under the supervision of someone experienced, according to a DGCA inquiry.
On July 10, Rohit Pandey’s body was found dangling from the belly of a 90-seater Bombardier Q400 aircraft when the hydraulic doors snapped shut on him. When fire brigade personnel retrieved him and took him to the emergency medical unit at the hospital, he was declared dead.
“The trainee was not trained and was carrying out work on the aircraft without any supervision by a trained/licensed engineer,” according to a DGCA official on the condition of anonymity.
In another major lapse, it was also found that the “landing gear door pin was not installed”. The pin would have stopped the hydraulic doors from shutting.
The DGCA findings will be used by the local police to fix criminal negligence. According to official sources, the DGCA is likely to suspend the licence of two licensed technicians who were on duty that evening, as well as the maintenance repair and overhaul organisation to whom maintenance work was outsourced by the airline.
It is learnt that the airline may also receive a notice. The inquiry also noted that the incident happened during night shift when there were fewer licensed engineers on duty.
