A parliamentary panel has raised serious concerns over what it termed “systemic rather than episodic failures” in India’s aviation safety framework, citing a series of crashes, audit findings and regulatory lapses during 2025-26, and has called for the urgent constitution of an independent high-level committee to investigate the root causes.In its latest report, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture pointed to a pattern of incidents, including the Ahmedabad crash that claimed 260 lives, the Jharkhand air ambulance crash with seven fatalities, and the Baramati chartered plane crash, alongside alarming audit findings to underline deep structural issues in oversight and compliance.“The pattern… taken together, indicate systemic rather than episodic failures in the aviation safety architecture,” the committee observed, noting that defects were found in 377 of 754 aircraft during DGCA audits, while a single audit of Air India flagged nearly 100 safety lapses. It also highlighted 19 safety violation notices issued by late 2025 and a penalty imposed for operating flights without a valid Airworthiness Review Certificate.Calling for immediate corrective action, the committee has recommended that the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) set up an independent High-Level Committee on Aviation Safety.The proposed panel is to include experts from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), airline operators, international safety bodies and independent technical specialists.The mandate of this committee, the report said, would be to conduct a “root-cause analysis of the systemic safety failures observed during 2025-26” and submit its findings within 90 days.It has been asked to specifically examine maintenance oversight, the quality of pilot training, crew fatigue management, and whether the DGCA has the regulatory capacity to oversee a rapidly expanding aviation sector.The parliamentary panel also stressed the need to overhaul monitoring systems, recommending the creation of a real-time, integrated safety framework linking the DGCA, airlines and maintenance agencies.It said such a system should be backed by “regular public disclosures of key safety indicators” to address risks arising from delayed or fragmented oversight.