Aviation watchdog DGCA on Thursday said it has suspended Tata Group-owned Air India's Flight Safety Chief Rajeev Gupta for one month for certain lapses.

On July 25 and 26, the regulator's team carried out the surveillance of Air India in the areas of internal audit, accident prevention work and availability of required technical manpower.

The surveillance found deficiencies in the accident prevention work carried out by the organisation and the availability of the requisite technical manpower as required in the approved Flight Safety Manual and the relevant Civil Aviation Requirements, DGCA said in a release.

"The approval of Chief of Flight Safety of Air India has been suspended for a period of one month for the lapses established," it said.

Rajeev Gupta is the Chief of Flight Safety Air India Ltd.

In the past also, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had cracked a whip against the full-service private carrier for various alleged violations and lapses. Last month, the regulator suspended for 10 days the ATO approval to Air India's training facilities in Mumbai and Hyderabad for certain lapses in simulator training.

"Further it was observed that some of the internal audit/spot checks claimed to be carried out by the airline were done in a perfunctory manner and not as per the regulatory requirements," the DGCA said in its statement on Thursday.

DGCA said after reviewing the action taken report submitted by the airline, it issued show-cause notices to the concerned post holders.

"Based on the review of the replies received, the airline has been directed not to assign any audits/surveillance/spot checks pertaining to compliance of DGCA requirements to the particular auditor involved in the perfunctory inspections which indicates lack of diligence," it said.

In February this year, the regulator had ordered the removal of Air India subsidiary AIX Connect (earlier AirAsia India) head of training, from his position for a period of three months, violating certain norms relating to the pilots training.

Besides, it had imposed a penalty of Rs 20 lakh on the airline, as well as a fine of Rs 3 lakh each on eight designated examiners.

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