Lack of effective control on maintenance activities led to Air India flight’s emergency landing in 2024, finds probe

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), probing an incident involving a Bengaluru-bound Air India flight making an emergency landing at the Delhi airport in May 2024, due to a fire warning from its Auxiliary Power Unit (APU), has blamed Air India’s Continuing Airworthiness Management Organisation (CAMO) for a lack of effective control over maintenance activities.

On May 17, flight AI-807 with 177 people on board, including crew, made an emergency landing at the Delhi airport. However, no injuries were reported.

Most probable cause

The investigation report on the incident said that the most probable cause of the incident was due to, “APU hot air leaks from load control valve & T Duct - Scroll flange in combination with the ingestion of APU exhaust gases into the APU compartment, which would have increased the overall temperature over the triggering limits of the APU Fire ECAM (Electronic Centralised Aircraft Monitor) alert, causing the APU Fire indication.”

It further stated that the lack of effective control of M/s Air India CAMO on the maintenance activities being performed on the APU contributed to the incident.

No effective monitoring

The report said that the CAMO of Air India failed to effectively monitor and ensure that the actual cause of the defect was identified through the maintenance performed.

“There were significant gaps in the oversight on the part of the airline CAMO over the maintenance of its aircraft by the contracted Aircraft Maintenance Organisation, Air India Engineering Services Ltd. (AIESL), wherein the oil uplift, oil consumption of the on-wing APU were neither known to the airline CAMO nor were they identified prior to the incident,” the report said.

“It is inferred that M/s Air India CAMO had no records of the exhaust muffler and bellows-related inspection, as a reply was not submitted even after several reminders,” it added.

Safety recommendations

Regarding safety recommendations, the report stated that the DGCA headquarters may take appropriate action against M/S Air India for failing to ensure the satisfactory completion of scheduled tasks and for not monitoring the oil uplift/ oil consumption data of the APU.

“M/s Air India to monitor APU Oil consumption, uplift and condition of the APU on all its A320 family fleet and ensure oil over servicing is avoided,” it said.