Air India under scrutiny again after A320 flew eight times without valid airworthiness certificate

Air India operated an Airbus A320 on multiple flights last month despite the aircraft’s airworthiness certificate having expired, the Economic Times reported on Tuesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

The newspaper said the 164-seat aircraft made eight flights on November 24–25 before an engineer noticed the lapse and grounded the jet.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has opened an investigation, according to the report.

Air India, owned by Tata Group, has faced heightened scrutiny of its safety processes after a June 12 Dreamliner crash killed 260 people.

Operating an aircraft without valid safety documentation is considered a serious violation and could lead to fines or suspension of senior officials.

The airline said it had suspended employees involved in releasing the aircraft without a valid certificate and had launched an internal investigation, ET reported. The A320 remains grounded pending the regulator’s review.

Flying an aircraft with an expired airworthiness certificate could also put Air India in breach of lessor agreements by potentially invalidating insurance cover.

Senior engineers said such lapses are rare because modern maintenance systems make it difficult to miss renewal deadlines. The DGCA typically categorises such incidents as a Level 1 violation, the most serious in terms of safety impact.

DGCA had earlier issued show-cause notices to top Air India executives, including CEO Campbell Wilson, for operating multiple components beyond their approved lifespans. The head of the airline’s engineering quality department was suspended earlier this year.

The report comes days after Airbus said intense solar radiation might corrupt data critical to flight controls in A320 family aircraft and that the software updates were required to fix the issue.

DGCA on Sunday said Indian carriers have completed the software upgrades on 323 operational A320 family planes to address a potential issue related to flight controls.

A total of 338 A320 family aircraft with the three Indian airlines -- IndiGo, Air India and Air India Express -- were initially identified for the software upgrades to address the issue.

Among them, 323 were operational, six were under base maintenance and later it was found that the upgrades were not needed for nine such planes in the fleet of Air India, according to a senior DGCA official.