IndiGo Engine Failure on Taxi Triggers DGCA Probe Demand from MP

IndiGo flight 6E 7423 sat on the tarmac for two hours on Monday before its pilot cancelled the departure, after one engine failed while taxiing from the parking bay toward the runway at Kolkata. On board were 71 people — 67 passengers and four Members of Parliament, including DMK Rajya Sabha MP P. Wilson, who is now demanding a DGCA investigation into airworthiness certification across India.

The aircraft was bound for Shillong, carrying the parliamentarians to a Joint Parliamentary Committee public hearing. Wilson says the aircraft stopped suddenly during taxi. One engine failed before take-off and was shut down. Passengers waited roughly two hours before the pilot announced a technical problem and cancelled the flight.

Wilson has escalated the matter directly to Union Civil Aviation Minister Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu. His demands are specific:

• An independent review of airworthiness certificates issued to aircraft operating in India, conducted by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
• Surprise inspections wherever the regulator deems necessary, to establish whether aircraft meet prescribed safety standards.
• Immediate grounding and certificate cancellation for any aircraft found unsuitable for operations.
• Disciplinary action against regulatory officials found guilty of negligence or misconduct.

How was this aircraft certified fit to fly?

That is Wilson's central question, posted publicly on X. He described the incident as a serious warning about possible deficiencies in maintenance and regulatory oversight. He argued an aircraft experiencing such a failure should not have been cleared for passenger operations without adequate verification of its technical condition.

Wilson also framed airworthiness certification as a fundamental passenger safeguard — one that should not be treated as a routine administrative formality. He questioned what might have happened had the engine failure occurred after take-off rather than on the ground.

His sharpest allegation goes further. Wilson claimed improper coordination between certain airline operators and regulatory officials could compromise aviation safety, and that some aircraft are being allowed to operate despite concerns about their technical condition. These collusion claims have not been independently established, and the source material offers no evidence beyond the MP's assertion.

What does this change for the regulator?

For now, nothing formally. The DGCA has not announced an investigation, and the precise technical cause of the reported engine failure remains undetermined. Whether any certification requirement was breached is also unestablished. Wilson's intervention is political pressure, not regulatory action.

The MP referenced the Air India Flight AI171 crash while arguing that inadequate oversight carries real consequences. That linkage, too, is rhetorical; the source does not connect the two events beyond Wilson's expression of concern.

The wider context

The incident lands in India's rapidly expanding aviation sector, where maintenance practices, pre-flight inspections and the capacity of the DGCA to supervise a growing fleet are under recurring scrutiny. A sitting parliamentarian with direct passenger experience of an engine failure gives those questions political weight they rarely carry — but the verifiable record here remains thin. One cancelled flight, one shutdown engine, one unverified set of allegations about regulator-airline coordination.

Until the DGCA responds or a technical investigation establishes the cause, Wilson's demand for a fleet-wide airworthiness review stands as an open request to Minister Naidu, with no confirmed timeline and no stated regulator position. Whether it produces surprise inspections, or fades as a single cancelled regional flight, depends on the ministry's next move.