AI junior pilots are 'stressed', forced to work overtime

An Air India pilots' body has urged DGCA to look into the issue of deployment of a section of its "stressed" junior pilots in the cockpit, days after the Germanwings plane crash.

Stating that some 30-odd co-pilots were being "forced to work overtime" without any remuneration, the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), in a letter to the aviation

regulator today alleged that "putting these highly-stressed and financially over-burdened co-pilots in the same cockpit...is a perfect recipe for disaster."

ICPA represents the narrow-body Airbus A320 pilots in the airline. This is the second time in the last 10 days that ICPA has red-flagged safety concerns in Air India to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

Earlier, it had asked DGCA to ground the airline's 26-year-old A-320 fleet citing safety concerns.

The fresh communication to the regulator comes following the action of Andreas Lubitz, co-pilot of the Germanwings flight who last week crashed the Airbus A320 plane into the French Alps killing himself and 149 others.