New Delhi, Feb. 6 -- India's aviation safety regulator identified repetitive technical defects in 377 aircraft in 2025, exactly half the aircraft across Indian airlines, with the specific defects ranging from innocuous ones such as faulty recliners or entertainment system to critical ones such as inoperative weather radar and hydraulic pressure issue, according to data shared by the civil aviation ministry in the Lok Sabha on Thursday. Repetitive defects are faults, malfunctions, or maintenance issues that reappear on the same aircraft multiple times, indicating that the root cause - such as a component failure or faulty wiring-has not been properly identified or eliminated. The ministry's response, in the form of a written statement by minister of state Murlidhar Mohol, was to a set of questions by multiple lawmakers, including BJP's Dilip Saikia and Manoj Tiwari, who sought to know the number of safety audits, ramp inspections and surveillance checks conducted by the regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) since January, 2025, and whether any recurring technical or operational faults/deficiencies have been identified across various airlines. The response comes against the backdrop of serious questions being asked of DGCA and the ministry over the safety record of Indian airlines, especially following the June 12, 2025, crash of an Air India aircraft in Ahmedabad that claimed 260 lives. To be sure, the ministry's response was only about safety audits and inspections of scheduled airlines; on January 28, a charter flight crashed in Baramati, killing Maharashtra's then deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar. According to the data shared by the minister, IndiGo, which ended 2025 with a fleet strength of around 440 accounted for 148 aircraft identified with repetitive defects out of 405 analysed....