India, Feb. 26 -- Two crashes involving small aircraft , both private charters, in two months - the first resulting in the death of five people at the Baramati airstrip, including then Maharashtra deputy CM Ajit Pawar, and the latest killing seven in Jharkhand - have raised red flags about the safety architecture for this class of aircraft. Ongoing probes in both accidents may eventually shed light on the causes, but the facts that have emerged so far underscore how urgently the directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) needs to tighten the rules for small aircraft and become proactive in compliance oversight. The absence of a black box in the air ambulance that crashed in Jharkhand earlier this week has complicated the investigation of the crash. This is rooted in the fact that DGCA doesn't mandate flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders for planes under 5,700 kg. This underscores a gap in regulation that needs to be filled at the earliest. Meanwhile, the grounding of four charter jets operated by VSR Ventures - which operated the aircraft involved in the Baramati crash - for safety issues detected after a special audit following the crash has raised the obvious (and entirely justified) what-if question. That, and the warning issued to small aircraft operators after a review of incidents over the past decade shows that safety compliance monitoring is reactive, something that flies in the face of logic. DGCA must fix these issues while holding operators accountable. For a start, it needs to mandate adequate data-gathering equipment for small carriers, with retrospective effect. The perception that the regulator is not fully in charge of the cockpit when it comes to flight safety must be corrected immediately....