Airline Fined $36,000 By Regulator For Tail Strike Incidents

India’s aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), has imposed a fine on IndiGo following multiple incidents of tail strikes in the last few months. After an audit of the airline, the regulator also asked IndiGo to make certain changes to its procedures to prevent such incidents from happening again. A penalty was also issued for the incidents. Let’s look at this for today’s video.

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[abhayvenkatesh]

To add to this information, there were (unconfirmed) reports that Indigo's SOPs stressed on a Flap 3 config landing to save fuel, which was seen as unnecessary and risky. The A321neo are also slightly more tricky at landing because of their high AOA on approach. Just my 2 cents

[John_Be]

What is $36k to an airline like 1¢? Oooooh I'm sure they're shaking in their boots. The tail strike repair is worse than the fine!

[sundragon]

$36k is not even a hand slap. The real penalty will be the premature loss of the aircraft due to compromised structural integrity. Or worse, the aircraft breaks up while in service.

[cabottaxi]

4 tail strikes in only 6 months makes me wondering who exactly is responsible for their flight training 
Have some of them learned to fly on Microsoft Flight Simulator ?

[ankushdas]

If I reckon they were not using all the flaps. They were only using 2 to 3 flaps to reduce air resistance during landing to avoid extra fuel burn to save money.

[TechSpyYt]

30 lakh rupees is so worthless 😂 Its literally equivalent to 10rs to the airline 😂

[kaustubh]

The DGCA needs to be stricter with airlines many a times SOPs are ingnored causing safety concern.
A while back i travelled via IndiGo it felt like the Pilot was driving a Haryana Roadways bus.

[GintaPPE]

If they care so little about proper landing procedure, I doubt the tailstrikes were properly-repaired either, or that they aren't cutting corners elsewhere. Safety is a cultural thing, and there's no such thing as only a single type of systemic violation - lack of concern for safety in one area means they think they can get away with it elsewhere too.

[mattstanley]

36k isn’t a lot in the grand scheme considering the cost of repairs and down time of the aircraft

[TimTVOfficial]

The penalties, including the length of the pilot suspension, sound fair. I would opt for a higher financial penalty if they damaged the runway in any of these tail-strike incidents. It would likely justify an audit on those involved in their pilot training program, such as an audit of their chief pilot.

[RexyH]

Fair enough, but not enough. More training & amended SOP's required.

[RonPiggott]

Is India's regulator trying to make a statement?

[ericsantiago]

It appears that the pilots need to go back to the simulator as they appear to be having issues getting used to the difference between Airbus A321 and A320 🙄

[KyIieMinogue]

To the surprise of absolutely no one, more easily avoided incidents coming out of Indian pilots or airlines.

[johniii]

Very simple if they had that many tail strikes, not well trained pilots. That's like 10+ times higher than you will find at other major airlines. It's very well there are major training/professionalism issues with pilots in India. It's only going to get worse as they try to expand so fast.

[sagardebbarma]

If u see in safety point of view indigo is not a safe to fly seriously.
Safety is zero

[djjamar]

Tail strikes can kill in the future. Remember the Japan airline that was fixed improperly by boeing after tail strike damage. Killing over 500 passengers when the tail came off in flight

[flywithjohn]

How many degrees is a tail strike in a 321?

[allensanders]

i think fines or not i'm not flying with them.

[parimal]

Is this pilot issue alone or can also be design issue in A321?