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“Captain Illson brings more than four decades of aviation experience across the FAA (US Federal Aviation Administration), ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization), IATA (International Air Transport Association) and major global carriers. With an illustrious track record in global air transport, he brings extensive expertise in global aviation strategy, customized consulting, safety leadership, setting international standards, and new aircraft technologies,” IndiGo said, adding that the decision follows the recommendation of the board-constituted Crisis Management Group (CMG).

According to Illson’s LinkedIn profile, the former airline captain earlier served as a senior advisor to American aviation regulator FAA on development of strategies to enhance the FAA’s safety oversight systems. Previously, he worked in senior positions in the domain of aviation safety at various organisations and corporations, including a stint as the chief of the Operational Safety Air Navigation Bureau at United Nations’ aviation body ICAO.

“As part of its assessment, the CMG advised commissioning an independent expert review in the matter. With the Board’s approval now in place, the review will begin at the earliest, and the independent expert reviewer will submit a comprehensive report to the Board upon completion,” said an IndiGo spokesperson. The airline did not elaborate for how long its root cause analysis will go on for.

In his video statement on Wednesday, while announcing that the airline’s board will engage an independent expert for root cause analysis, Mehta had denied allegations that the crisis was engineered and that the airline tried to influence the government over the revised Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) rules. Mehta, a former long-time chairman of the Shell Group of Companies in India, also said that claims that the airline’s board was not engaged on the FDTL issue are “not correct”.

Some aviation sector experts and former bureaucrats had questioned the effectiveness of the airline’s high-profile board and whether it did enough in the months leading up to a massive operational crisis that brought the country’s aviation system to its knees. While Mehta mentioned that the board was involved and had received the necessary information about the new crew rest rules from the airline’s management, he did not say whether the board was aware that IndiGo was underprepared for the new rules and whether it made any intervention in the run-up to the rollout of the second phase of the FDTL norms from November 1.

Apologising for the disruption that impacted tens of thousands of passengers, Mehta said that while he had been urged to make a statement on the issue, he chose to wait because the airline’s board felt that its first duty was to support IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers and his team, restore operations, and help passengers who were affected. With the airline’s operations now stabilised, Mehta said that he felt it was the right time for him to speak.

On questions raised on the airline’s board, Mehta said, “There has also been a claim that the board was not engaged. This is not correct. The board has been closely involved with this matter for many months. Both the board and the (board’s) risk management committee have received relevant information from the management on the implementation of the rules.”

The network-wide disruption faced by IndiGo was primarily due to the carrier’s inadequate preparation for the second phase of the new crew rest and duty norms that took effect on November 1. IndiGo was short on crew against what the new norms required, and in combination with a few other factors, this led to widespread disruption in the airline’s operations, leading to thousands of flight cancellations since the middle of last week.

The new FDTL rules stipulate more rest for pilots and rationalization of their flying duties—particularly late night operations—in a bid to better manage pilot fatigue, which is a key risk to aviation safety. These new norms, which were stipulated in January last year were delayed in their implementation, and took effect in two phase—from July 1 and November 1—with the second phase rollout hitting IndiGo considerably. The new norms meant that airlines either had to have more pilots to maintain their schedule, or shrink the schedule in line with the new requirements. IndiGo, however, was caught unprepared.

In review meetings, IndiGo also accepted that that the disruptions “have arisen primarily from misjudgement and planning gaps in implementing” the second phase of new FDTL rules, with the airline saying that the actual crew requirement for the new rules exceeded what it had anticipated, as per the DGCA. Given the scale of the disruption, the DGCA last week granted IndiGo a temporary one-time exemption from some night operations-related changes in the new FDTL norms for its Airbus A320 pilots. The temporary rollback, which will be in place till February 10, helped IndiGo to get its act together and stabilise operations. The DGCA also granted a few other temporary relaxations to IndiGo in a bid to ensure that flight operations remain stable.