NEW DELHI: The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has grounded four jets of VSR Ventures following an audit of the charter company. On January 28, Maharashtra deputy CM Ajit Pawar and four others had lost their lives when a plane belonging to VSR crashed at Baramati Airport. The regulator had then ordered special safety audits of VSR and other charter operators.“The multi-disciplinary audit team observed several non-compliances of approved procedures in the organisation in the area of airworthiness, air safety, and flight operations. In view of the non-compliances observed and considering the gaps in maintenance procedures it is decided to initiate the corrective measures by immediately grounding Learjet 40/45 aircraft with registration VT-VRA, VT-VRS, VT-VRV, and VT-TRI till continued airworthiness standards are restored,” the DGCA said in a statement Tuesday.“Deficiency reporting forms have been issued to M/s VSR Ventures Pvt Ltd in above mentioned areas to submit root cause analysis on the non-compliances for further assessment by the DGCA,” it added.This action comes after the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) had in Dec 2024 suspended the third country operator (TCO) authorisation for VSR Ventures Pvt Ltd. EASA finding was raised against VSR Ventures due to their failure to respond to the EASA requests for furnishing information regarding the accident involving their Learjet 45 aircraft on September 14, 2023, at Mumbai airport.EASA TCO authorisation is a mandatory safety certification issued by EASA for non-EU airlines operating commercial flights into, within, or out of the European Union. VSR Ventures was holding the TCO authorisation from EASA since 2020 till the same was suspended in December 2024.
