DGCA, which stand for Directorate General of Civil Aviation is Indian Government’s regulatory civil aviation body and directly comes under the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India.
The DGCA headquarters are located along Sri Aurobindo Marg, opposite the Safdarjung Airport, New Delhi. Also, DGCA has 14 regional airworthiness offices, 5 regional air safety offices, a gliding center in Pune and a regional research and development office at Bangalore.
The Directorate’s vision is to promote safe and efficient air travel. Previously, DGCA used to investigate aviation incidents and accidents and provided information and statistics to investigations established by Court and Committee enquiry, however, in 2011, a separate bureau called Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau was founded to comply with Standards and Recommended Practices of ICAO, i.e. International Civil Aviation Organization, a specialized UN agency fostering international air transport’s planning and development.
To ensure complete safety of aircrafts, it’s pivotal that the maintenance, repair and modification work on the aircrafts is carried out by proficient and adequately qualified engineers. And this is exactly where DGCA kicks in.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation issues Aircraft Maintenance Engineering (AME) licenses. The DGCA conducts aviation courses (aircraft maintenance course, ame course) and apart from issuing the AME, it also issues Basic Maintenance Engineer’s Certificate (BAMEC), which is necessary for acquiring a type rated AME license for inspection and certification of aircrafts and engines.
It is the job of a licensed aircraft engineer to maintain the fitness of aircrafts. Apart from the general maintenance, it’s also their job to certify a civil aircraft’s fitness before its flight. Without a fitness clearance from an AME, no flight is allowed to take off. To be more precise, periodic inspections are conducted by Ames depending on the flight durations of aircrafts. And as such, an AME issues a Certificate Release to Service (CRS), lacking which, an aircraft won’t be permitted to take off.
To become an AME, which is quite a prestigious title, given the lack of certified aircraft maintenance training institutions and the utter responsibility of the lives of countless people, a person has to undergo training from a DGCA-certified institute.
IIA Group has been one of India’s oldest and most reputed Aircraft Maintenance Technician and Engineering training institutes and has been tremendously contributing to the global and Indian aviation industry for more than 35 years.
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