Civil aviation regulator DGCA has issued directions for enhanced surveillance of Boeing 737 planes in the fleets of India’s commercial airlines after an aircraft of the same make crashed on a domestic flight in China on Monday killing all 132 people on board.

There are close to 100 Boeing 737 planes being flown by India’s airlines with low-cost carrier SpiceJet having the largest fleet of 64 planes followed by Vistara with 24 planes.

DGCA chief Arun Kumar told journalists, "Flight safety is serious business and we are closely studying the situation.. We are deploying teams to monitor flight operations and airworthiness of these planes.”

Two Boeing 737 Max aircraft were involved in accidents in the six-month period between October 2018 and March 2019, killing a total of 346 people. Following these two accidents, the DGCA had banned Boeing 737 Max planes in India in March 2019.

After Boeing made necessary software rectifications to the satisfaction of the DGCA, the ban on the aircraft's commercial operations was lifted after 27 months in August last year.

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