Pakistan airline grounds 150 pilots amid fake licence scandal

INTERNATIONAL airline investigators are looking into potentially serious safety lapses in Pakistan’s flight industry after the national carrier disclosed a third of its pilots may hold “dubious” flying qualifications.

Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) said yesterday it would ground more than 150 pilots after an investigation had cast suspicion on their flying licences and certificates.

The move was announced a day after investigators blamed a Pakistan International Airlines pilot for last month’s crash in a suburb of Karachi which killed 99 people.

A government minister said the crew were over-confident and distracted by a conversation about coronavirus when the PIA Airbus A320 crashed on May 22.

Pilots’ union leaders rejected the possibility that so many of their members could hold fake licences and said the government was trying to find scapegoats for the crash.

A spokesman for the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said:

“We are following reports from Pakistan regarding fake pilot licences, which are concerning and represent a serious lapse in the licensing and safety oversight by the aviation regulator.

“We are trying to obtain more information on the matter.”

PIA flew several times a week to London, Birmingham and Manchester before the pandemic curtailed flights and it was highly placed among world airlines until the Seventies.

Its reputation has since been tarnished with delays, cancellations and financial troubles. The airline has been embarrassed by reports of pilots falling asleep, or turning up drunk for work.

“We’ve been told that an investigation conducted by the civil aviation authority has found that about 150 of our pilots have dubious licences,” company spokesman Abdullah Khan said.

Inquiries into employees’ qualifications began after an earlier crash where it was found the pilot’s licence may have been fake as the date stamp for his test indicated it had been taken on a public holiday. Another pilot was found to have been out of the country on the day he was said to have been tested.