Pilot dreams, few fire exits: Delhi’s private aviation training hubs flout safety norms

Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta has given coaching institutes one month to fix fire safety or face action. But a ground visit to the city’s clusters of flying academies, where students pay lakhs to chase a pilot’s licence, suggests many still ignore the rules.

Under Delhi’s building bylaws, every building needs a safe way out in a fire. A single staircase is permitted only if it meets fire department norms. Educational buildings taller than 9 metres, or with ground-plus-two floors including a mezzanine, must have two staircases, and every exit must lead straight to the street. Norms also specify the need for safety equipment such as fire extinguishers. 

Very little of that holds in the aviation belt around Ramphal Chowk and Palam Metro Station, where aviation coaching has become a cottage industry. Several private academies sit packed together. Those who have just finished class 12 pay between Rs 1.5 lakh and Rs 3 lakh for a six-to-eight-month course to prepare for the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) pilot licence exams. 

But what they are training inside, our visit found, are windowless rooms served by a single staircase, choked approaches, and, in some cases, not a single fire extinguisher or exit sign. 

Inside the academies

The first academy we entered was Vinod Yadav Aviation Academy. It occupies a ground-plus-three building. The ground floor runs a cosmetics store; the first floor holds a faculty room and a classroom of 30 aspiring pilots training from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm. The second and third floors also had a classroom each. 

Newslaundry visited two of these classrooms; both had no windows, no fire-exit signage, no extinguisher or water sprinkler. The exit was a solitary staircase leading to the terrace from the ground floor.

When we asked Vinod Yadav Aviation Academy about its fire-safety measures on the phone number listed on its brochure, the person who answered the call said, “We don’t have an aviation academy”.

At TOPFlyers, fire extinguishers sat on the staircase, but there was still only one way out. Windowless AC classrooms held 30 students across two batches. The academy operates from two floors in a multi-storey building. The ground floor houses a phone-cover shop and a food joint.

TOPFlyers responded: “We have 20 fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, and an emergency escape ladder. The audit was done by Fire Officer Mr Deokant Mishra. We have also done a fire safety mock drill.” 

Beside it, Captessar Aviation Academy ran classes with 5 to 10 students in small, windowless rooms, with no fire extinguisher, no second staircase.

In response to questions, Captessar Aviation Academy said, “We have fire extinguishers and enough staircases, as our academy is on the second floor.”

Outside all these facilities, vehicles and street vendors crowd the road, leaving little room to run. Unlike some other academies that sit next to wider roads with pavements. But those have similar fire safety risks.

Such as Star Alliance Aviation Academy, which is spread across three floors but has only one long staircase and no extinguisher. Or Aviators of Tomorrow, which keeps extinguishers on every floor but relies on a single staircase. They did not respond to Newslaundry’s emails seeking their response.

The Airborne Aviation Academy stood out, with water sprinklers, a clear fire exit, a separate staircase and lift, and extinguishers both inside and outside its classrooms. 

The same story, a different trade

The pattern is not confined to aviation. In Laxmi Nagar, the subject shifts to video editing and graphics but the risks look identical. 

At Hexacode, 60 students split into batches of eight study in a building on a narrow, congested road hemmed in by an auto-repair shop and parked bikes; there is one staircase and no extinguisher. At Alfa Computer Centre, eight batches of about 20 students each face the same trap, with one staircase and no exit sign. Neither responded to our emails.

Delhi has around 1,000 coaching centres.

Last month, CM Rekha Gupta had said, “One month. That is the deadline. The number of coaching institutes in Delhi is not the issue; the safety and security of our children is. Any institute without a fire audit, mandatory safety equipment or prescribed safety measures will face strict action, including sealing, if it fails to comply within a month.”

The CM urged students to report unsafe coaching centres through messages, e-mail or phone. “Every complaint will be acted upon. There will be no compromise on the safety of our children,” she said. 

Education Minister Ashish Sood had announced that the Municipal Corporation of Delhi had been designated as the nodal agency to conduct fire audits and safety inspections of all coaching centres. The scrutiny follows a run of deadly fires. The Lucknow fire killed 15 students on June 24. In Delhi, nine members of a family died in a Palam fire on March 18, and 23 people died in a Hauz Rani hotel fire in Malviya Nagar on June 3.

In response to Newslaundry’s questions, the MCD said it had acted against 38 coaching centres since June this year for flouting building bylaws. However, there was no clear response to specific questions about monitoring of coaching institutes for fire safety compliance. 

Aditya Tanwar, research head at Delhi-based NGO CYCLE (Centre for Youth Culture Law and Environment), said two staircases are compulsory for any educational building, and inspections must verify building plans, staircase width, and equipment such as extinguishers and alarms. “Fire safety cannot depend solely on inter-departmental correspondence,” he said. “The law should empower the technical authority with adequate enforcement powers.”

In response to Newslaundry’s questions, the Delhi Fire Department says it checks buildings against the bylaws and fire-NOC requirements, and has formed a committee to examine illegal operations. 

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