The Business Aircraft Operators' Association (BAOA) on Friday objected to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation's (DGCA's) recent surprise inspections of private planes and the publicizing of the inspection reports.

On March 22, DGCA had grounded Reliance Commercial Dealers Ltd's private jet, citing major violations related to safety equipment. The civil aviation regulator also conducted surprise inspection of an aircraft owned by Jindal Steel & Power Ltd. On March 28, inspectors from DGCA held up a Hawker 800 XP of SRC Aviation for several hours as they found a number of safety violations.

But, BAOA Secretary R. Bali said that the increased inspections were an attempt by the regulator to detract the public's attention from the issue of the issue of recent downgrade of India civil aviation sector by the America's Federal Aviation Authority (FAA).

Objecting to the surprise checks, Bali said, "Reports in the media initiated by DGCA are a clear attempt to detract attention from the essence of this issue and shift blame of the FAA downgrade to the private aircraft operator."

He alleged that the downgrading of Indian by the FAA was due to shortage of qualified staff with DGCA to carry out inspections of aircrafts and not due to deficiencies with private jet operators. He added that the regulator misrepresented the proven safety consciousness that prevails among non-scheduled operators (NSOPs) and private aircraft operators.

But, a DGCA official said the objective of the surprise safety checks was to ensure private jet operators' compliance with the rules and regulations. The official also declared that the regulator does not have any control over what the press reports about the deficiencies that inspectors had found in private jets.