Aviation Watchdog Gets New Chief Amid Year Of Crashes, Disruptions

Senior Indian Administrative Service officer Vir Vikram Yadav has been appointed the new Director General of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), replacing Faiz Ahmed Kidwai. The key bureaucratic reshuffle comes amid a turbulent year in the country's aviation safety framework. 

Tuesday's appointments were part of a broader bureaucratic reshuffle involving multiple ministries, including civil aviation, finance, commerce and agriculture.

Yadav, a 1996-batch Odisha cadre officer who was in the agriculture ministry, takes charge at a time when the aviation regulator is under intense focus over safety oversight and operational disruptions. 

A 1996-batch IAS officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre, Kidwai took over as the Director General of the DGCA in January 2025 - a time when the sector was witnessing rapid expansion and increasing operational complexity. His tenure at the DGCA lasted a little over a year before being cut short with his appointment as Additional Secretary in the Department of Personnel and Training.

The leadership change follows a challenging period for the DGCA marked by a series of crises that exposed deeper concerns within India's aviation ecosystem.

The most significant among these was the Air India Flight 171 crash in June 2025, in which a Boeing 787-8 crashed shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad, killing around 260 people. A subsequent DGCA audit flagged nearly 100 safety lapses in Air India's operations, including violations related to pilot training and flight duty norms.

The regulator was also at the centre of a prolonged standoff over revised flight duty time limitation norms, as stricter safety rules led to friction between airlines and pilot bodies. 

The issue culminated in a major operational crisis at IndiGo in December 2025, when crew shortages triggered nearly 4,500 flight cancellations within days, prompting regulatory intervention including temporary relaxations and fare caps.

Safety concerns extended into this year with the Baramati Learjet 45 crash in January, which killed Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and four others, followed by a fatal air ambulance crash in Jharkhand in February. Both incidents intensified scrutiny of non-scheduled and charter operations.

A Parliamentary Standing Committee report tabled last week described these developments as evidence of "systemic fragilities" in aviation safety, recommending an independent high-level probe. 

The panel also flagged staffing shortages within the DGCA, noting that the regulator operates with just 843 personnel against a sanctioned strength of 1,630.