When Air India’s AI-2379, flying from Phuket towards Delhi, plunged 300 feet mid-air, injuring 24 people, it made headlines. What followed were questions about what happened on board.

The findings that a drug-impaired captain possibly triggered it exposed a problem that has been known for a long time – that India’s aviation regulator is overstretched.

Does it have the people, powers and appetite to catch safety failures before they become accidents?

The answers are visible in the regulator’s own records.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) issued 382 show-cause notices between 2024 and mid-2026, but those resulted in only 51 enforcement actions.

At the same time, thousands of deficiencies identified during inspections remain unresolved, while the same classes of violations keep appearing across airlines.

“It’s a system built to meet minimum compliance, not to prevent the next accident,” said Amit Singh, an internationally recognised aviation expert, former IndiGo captain and founder of Safety Matters Foundation, told The Core.

This is becoming harder to ignore as India’s aviation market expands.

A country with a 300-million-passenger market cannot depend on a regulatory system whose manpower and enforcement capacity have failed to keep up with growth.

The Glaring Numbers

Data from DGCA’s various disclosures show how grave the problem really is.

DGCA detected 4,692 safety deficiencies up to April 2025, according to a Parliamentary Committee. Only 945 had been closed, leaving 3,747 pending. The committee also flagged recurring defects in half of the audited aircraft and described weaknesses in DGCA’s surveillance and closure mechanisms.

In 2025, DGCA identified 23 safety lapses at IndiGo, including training gaps and procedural violations. By February 2026, 148 IndiGo aircraft had been identified with “repetitive defects.”

Air India had 51 safety lapses identified in 2025, including seven Level-1 critical findings involving maintenance and documentation. By February 2026, 137 Air India aircraft had repetitive defects.

Air India Express had 25 issues flagged in 2025, including two Level-1 findings, while 54 aircraft were later identified with repetitive defects.

SpiceJet had 14 findings in 2025 and 16 aircraft with repetitive defects by February 2026. July 2026 DGCA data also showed the airline had the highest long delays, another sign of operational stress.

Of 754 aircraft audited, recurring defects were found in 377 — exactly half.

“If corrective action is delayed, the same weaknesses can recur,” said S Pandey, managing director (India) at International Flight Operations Academy.

“The bigger question is whether regulatory oversight, manpower and enforcement capacity have kept pace with the extraordinary growth of Indian aviation.”

Preventing that finding from appearing again requires surveillance, manpower and credible consequences. This is something that the regulator seems to be struggling with.

The Enforcement Gap

For instance, the DGCA requires airlines to randomly test at least 10% of their total pilot workforce every year. The Federation of Indian Pilots has argued that the coverage should be increased.

In a letter dated August 17 to the DGCA, which the author has viewed, FIP recommended raising psychoactive-substance testing coverage to at least 25%, allowing repeat selections.

It also proposed oral-fluid testing alongside the urine testing currently conducted, arguing that it could increase testing capacity, reduce operational disruption and facilitate rapid testing at airports and other operational locations.

The issue is whether the system has enough capacity to enforce it consistently.

Oversight is thin, incidents get quietly downgraded, and co-pilots avoid reporting senior-pilot errors for fear of backlash, he explained.

Captain CS Randhawa, president of the Federation of Indian Pilots and a former deputy chief flight operations inspector at DGCA, told The Core, “DGCA works in collusion with airlines, and safety takes a back seat.”

A former DGCA official described a different but related problem — institutional caution.

According to the former official, fear of dismissal has weighed on the regulator since 2012, when DGCA chief EK Bharat Bhushan was removed after taking a hard line on airlines and insisting that overdue salaries be paid because financially stressed staff posed safety risks.

“The message hangs over the regulator. Officers go soft on airlines, fearing firm action might threaten their jobs and seniority,” the former official said.

The result is a regulatory system where warnings don’t result in a change of behaviour.

The People Problem

No matter how efficient, even the most aggressive regulator cannot inspect aircraft, investigate incidents and follow up on violations without enough people.

The DGCA had 1,630 sanctioned positions against 843 working positions as of January 2026, leaving 787 vacancies. Its technical cadre — including flight operations inspectors, airworthiness officers and safety surveillance staff — had 575 vacancies out of 1,123 sanctioned posts.

The shortage has persisted for years.

DGCA vacancies rose from 462 in 2022 to 889 in 2023 and remained at roughly 835 to 787 through 2024-26. The regulator has attributed the vacancies to inadequate response to recruitment advertisements, selected candidates not joining and insufficient interest in deputation.

It has also relied on short-term contractual hiring to maintain surveillance capacity.

Parliamentary replies show 426 technical posts have been added since 2022, but the staffing increase has lagged traffic growth.

And the manpower problem extends beyond DGCA.

Randhawa minces no words. “The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is a mess. There are no qualified people there. It’s the same pack of cards. A country this large needs 90 investigators. We have only six,” he said.

The Federation of Indian Pilots has also asked DGCA to involve it in technical issues related to the AI-171 Ahmedabad crash in 2025. The final report has not yet been released, with a draft final report expected in October.

The shortage means that oversight risks becoming a cycle of inspection, warning and delay rather than inspection, correction and closure.

The Onus On Airlines

The responsibility of airline safety cannot solely rely on the DGCA.

Safety ultimately rests with regulators, airlines and maintenance organisations. Airlines are expected to identify problems themselves and report them rather than wait for inspectors to find them.

“Airlines need to self-regulate and report what is wrong. Incidents are downgraded, and ultimately a price is paid for that,” said Singh.

Following the recent Phuket incident, Air India has moved speedily.

In a letter to pilots on August 13, which The Core has viewed, the airline said it will undertake immediately a full mandatory screening “that goes beyond regulatory requirements,” of all group pilots for any substances or medications that are not permitted under prevailing regulations.

“It will be conducted concurrent with training at the Gurugram Academy, post-flight at our Flight Briefing Centres / Air India Offices, or at locations provided by your respective bases.”

The Core has learnt that this will continue for a few months.

Randhawa described the decision to test all pilots as a strong step, although he said psychological testing was not yet necessary.

The question of mental-health screening could nevertheless become harder to avoid. A pilot speaking anonymously pointed to the Germanwings tragedy, in which a depressed first officer deliberately crashed his aircraft, as an example of the risks the industry may eventually have to address.

India’s current guidelines say pilots cannot consume alcohol within 12 hours of a flight. IndiGo requires 15 hours so that no traces remain.

The Phuket incident therefore puts pressure on both sides of the equation for safety – the regulator to enforce and the airlines to police themselves.

More Enforcement Isn’t Better Enforcement

A rise in enforcement actions may reflect rising repeat violations, not rising regulatory rigour.

“A troubling proposition is that the same class of violations, by the same category of operators, is recurring faster than the existing enforcement architecture can deter it,” Sonam Chandwani, managing partner at KS Legal & Associates, told The Core.

“Warnings only work if conduct improves. When violations repeat, regulators must escalate quickly, including tougher penalties. In aviation, the real test of enforcement is whether the violations stop,” she added.

It is crucial to make this distinction. If the same maintenance, training, documentation or operational failures continue to appear, then the growing paper trail may be evidence of regulatory weakness rather than regulatory strength.

Time For A New Regulator?

This brings the debate back to something that has been discussed in India for over a decade – an autonomous civil aviation authority (CAA).

DGCA’s current structure, embedded within the Ministry of Aviation, dependent on government staffing rules, and limited in enforcement powers, cannot match the scale, complexity, and safety demands of the world’s third largest aviation market.

A genuinely autonomous CAA would have independent hiring powers, its own budget, stronger enforcement authority and greater freedom to recruit technical specialists at market rates.

Almost every country in the world, in the International Civil Aviation Organization's 193 member states, including Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan, has a CAA or equivalent regulator.

Randhawa said DGCA remains reactive and warning-driven, while the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Europe's European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) operate with stronger penalty mechanisms, time-bound compliance and greater transparency.

The FAA can ground aircraft and impose substantial fines, while EASA uses risk-based surveillance and compliance windows for repeat breaches. The point is not that India should copy either system but create one where there are consequences for violations.

While the DGCA tolerates recurrence, the FAA and EASA escalate penalties to prevent it.

A Forgotten Bill

A Civil Aviation Authority was discussed 13 years ago in 2013, but the proposed legislation failed after ministries resisted provisions intended to give the new body greater autonomy.

When Parliament dissolved ahead of the 2014 elections, the bill lapsed.

CAAs ensure faster decision-making, risk-based oversight, and penalty-driven compliance.

“Vested interests have put India in this sorry situation,” said Randhawa.

Now, as the FIP has again raised the need for a CAA, the question is whether India can afford to keep ignoring the need for one.