Boeing 737 aircraft of Indian carriers are being put on "enhanced surveillance" following a crash of a 737 passenger plane in China, said Arun Kumar, cheif of India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation.
Three Indian carriers – SpiceJet, Vistara, and Air India Express – have Boeing 737 aircraft in their fleets.
When asked what steps the DGCA is taking following Monday's crash, Kumar told PTI, "Flight safety is serious business and we are closely studying the situation. In the interim, we are focusing on enhanced surveillance of our 737 fleet."
A Boeing 737-800 aircraft of China Eastern Airlines, which was on way from Kunming to Guangzhou, crashed in Tengxian County in the city of Wuzhou, killing 123 passengers and nine crew members. There were no foreigners among the 132 people on board the Chinese passenger plane which crashed, according to China's state media.
Boeing 737 Max aircraft is an advanced version of Boeing 737-800 and both belong to the 737 series. The US-based aircraft manufacturer Boeing did not respond to PTI's request for a statement on the matter.
Earlier in 2019, India had grounded the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft being used by Indian airlines after an accident involving an Ethiopian Airlines plane of the same make in which 157 people were killed.
The 737 aircraft was also involved in another accident of a Lion Air flight in Java Sea in 2018 in which all 189 people in the plane were killed.
The investigations into the Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air crashes had brought out shortcomings in the design of the plane, including faulty software, and lack of proper training of pilots.
After Boeing made necessary software rectifications to the satisfaction of the DGCA, the ban on the aircraft's commercial operations was lifted after 27 months in August last year.
With PTI inputs
