India’s Air Travel Safety Achieves Significant Gains in 2023: DGCA

Reduction in airprox incidents and improved safety protocols lead to enhanced aviation safety.

India’s air travel safety saw a marked improvement in 2023, according to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s (DGCA) Annual Safety Review. The report highlights substantial reductions in high-risk incidents, reflecting the country’s continued commitment to aviation safety.

The DGCA announced on Wednesday that air travel in 2023 was notably safer than in the previous two years. Compared to 2021 and 2022, risk-bearing airprox incidents per million flights decreased by 25%, meeting the safety target. Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS) alerts per 10,000 departures reduced by an impressive 92%, significantly lowering the risk of controlled flight into terrain. Additionally, the number of unstable approaches that continued to land dropped by 23%, mitigating the chances of runway excursions and abnormal runway contact.

Airprox incidents, which involve breaches of minimum vertical and lateral separation between aircraft, were notably lower last year. This data is part of DGCA’s 2023 Annual Safety Review, which assesses India’s aviation safety performance in line with the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) Global Aviation Safety Plan (GASP). The report analyzes safety data from DGCA’s internal database and external sources, including ICAO’s iSTARS, ensuring a data-driven approach to identifying and addressing safety risks.

The DGCA’s National Aviation Safety Plan (NASP) focuses on National High-Risk Categories of Occurrences (N-HRCs) and sets performance indicators and safety targets that are reviewed annually. This comprehensive approach has helped India to embed a strong safety culture within its rapidly growing aviation sector.