The Things We Do for 'Love'

Air India, the New Delhi-based Indian national airline, found itself in the highly-irregular and unenviable position of having to remind its pilot cadre to maintain sterile flight-decks after one of the air-carrier’s captains—for reasons passing understanding—spent an unauthorized, patently illegal hour in the company of a female friend, locked away in the cockpit of Air India jet during a Delhi to Dubai flight.

What’s more, the captain allegedly instructed his Second in Command (SIC) to ensure the aircraft’s flight-deck appeared welcoming, warm and comfortable—after the fashion of a living-room prepared for a romantic tryst.

The 27 February 2023 incident was reported to Air India by a cabin crew-member on 03 March. On 21 April, the nation’s civil aviation regulatory agency became involved in the debacle.

According to the reporting crew-member, the captain requested his lady friend be served drinks and snacks during their inflight assignation. "I told him, 'Captain, I am not comfortable serving alcohol in the cockpit'," the complaint set forth, adding the pilot became "snappy and rude" thereafter.

Upon learning of the incident, India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation issued notices to Air India CEO, Campbell Wilson and the air-carrier’s head of safety, expressing dissatisfaction over the lethargy with which the airline reported the incident.

The Indian Directorate General also removed the incident-aircraft’s flight and cabin crews from Air India’s flight roster pending investigation of individuals’ complicity with the captain’s peccadillo. Air India is reportedly conducting its own, independent internal investigation of the occurrence.

On Monday, 01 May, Air India addressed the entirety of its pilot corps vis-à-vis the sterile cockpit rule, which expressly states all flight-deck conversations and activities not essential to the conduct and safety of flight are prohibited below ten-thousand-feet MSL.

In a public statement, Air India set forth: "Recent incidents have highlighted that there have been instances of a lapse in maintaining a sterile cockpit, which resulted in avoidable errors posing flight safety hazards.

The sterile cockpit rule was adopted by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration in 1981 following accidents such as Eastern Air Lines Flight 212, which was attributed to unnecessary conversation between pilots during a critical phase of flight.

FMI: www.airindia.in/about-airindia.htm