India's aviation regulator has initiated an investigation into a series of safety lapses at low-cost airline SpiceJet, which has resulted in the death of a technician and caused planes to veer off runways, people intimately aware of the matter said.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has also issued show cause notice to some officials of the company, they said, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The regulator is also probing the reason behind the death of a SpiceJet technician at Kolkata airport on Wednesday, they said. A SpiceJet technician was killed after the landing gear door of the aircraft he was working on getting "accidentally" shut at the Kolkata airport on Wednesday.

There are unconfirmed reports that SpiceJet has compensated the family of the technician.

The article will be updated with SpiceJet comment.

"A probe is on. Action will be taken based on the findings of the enquiry," one person familiar with the matter told CNBC-TV18.

DGCA has issued notices to the chief of flight safety, operations and training at SpiceJet, which has bounced back from a serious cash crunch in 2015 that nearly shut operations to consistent profits. The chief of flight safety has resigned while executives heading operations and training have been removed and replacements have been put in place, the persons quoted above said.

With the onset of monsoon, there has been an unusual increase in the number of incidents of runway overruns by domestic airlines at Indian airports. At least three have involved a SpiceJet plane at the airports Mumbai and Kolkata.

First Published:Jul 14, 2019 1:21 PM IST