Disparate audits leave aviation industry fuming

Mumbai: A team of Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s (DGCA) auditors collected flight details from an airport’s air traffic control and cross-verified it with flying training records maintained by the flying school which conducted training at that airport. It was done to check for fake entries in the school’s log books. At another school, the audit team did not check the air traffic control records, but only went through the aircraft fuel purchase records. In many flying schools, the team asked for flying training records for the last two years. Then in some, another audit team demanded records for the last five years. A particular flying school was asked to show training records for the last ten years. At quite a few flying schools, the audit teams sent a terror among the instructors and school authorities and ended the interrogations with a damning report. Yet, in a flying school or two, these same auditors took a friendly-approach and wrote out agreeable reports. According to industry sources, the one common aspect of the recent special audits being carried out by three DGCA teams at the country’s 40 flying schools is this: it does not follow a standard auditing procedure. 18/08/11 Manju V/Times of India