Air India has been issued a formal warning by an aviation watchdog for breaching safety rules after three planes took off despite being overdue for crucial checks on emergency equipment, according to a report. India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) found during spot checks in May that mandatory inspections for emergency escape slides on three of the airline’s Airbus planes were overdue. The inspection of one Airbus A320 was delayed for over a month before being completed on May 15—it flew to international destinations during the delay, according to Reuters. An A319 used domestically had checks overdue by three months, while a third aircraft had a two-day delay. In one of the incidents, the error was discovered when an engineer “inadvertently deployed an escape slide during maintenance,” the report claimed. Checks on escape slides are “a very serious issue. In case of an accident, if they don’t open, it can lead to serious injuries,” aviation expert Vibhuti Singh told Reuters. Air India acknowledged the findings in a statement and said it was “accelerating” verification of its maintenance records. The findings come just a week after an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed just moments after takeoff, killing at least 270 people in one of the most deadly aviation disasters in decades. The warning notices and investigation report were unrelated to the crash.
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