Ghulam Sarwar Khan, Pakistan’s aviation minister, said that of the 282 pilots found to have cheated on pilot exams, 177 were working at four Pakistani airlines.
Photo: aamir qureshi/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesISLAMABAD—Pakistan said Friday it would criminally charge pilots found to have obtained fraudulent flying credentials as the authorities raced to identify those who work for overseas airlines.
Detailing the outcome of an investigation, Pakistan said this week that almost one third of its pilots obtained their licenses after committing fraud in their pilot exams, such as by getting others to sit for their exams. Some of the pilots work abroad, the government has said, without releasing details about which pilots, countries or airlines.
Ghulam Sarwar Khan, Pakistan’s aviation minister, told a press conference Friday that of the 282 pilots found to have cheated on their pilot exams, 177 were working at four Pakistani airlines. None would be allowed to continue to fly, he said. The airlines have been notified of the names and the pilots grounded, the government said.
That left 85 pilots with allegedly falsified credentials working in unidentified places of employment, including foreign airlines, he said. A total of 107 Pakistani pilots work abroad, the government said.
“We’re trying to find out where they’re working,” Mr. Khan said of the 85 untraced pilots. “Their credentials aren’t real.”
A Karachi neighborhood bears scars from the deadly crash last month of a Pakistan International Airlines jet.
Photo: rizwan tabassum/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesSince Wednesday, when the government first disclosed the findings, Pakistani airlines have said they were waiting for an official list of the alleged fraudulent pilots. As of Friday night, Pakistani airlines said they still hadn’t been notified of the identities of the pilots.
Regulators in the Gulf and Europe said they were seeking more information.
The national carrier, Pakistan International Airlines, employs 141 of the suspect pilots, according to the government. PIA’s flights are already much reduced because of the coronavirus travel restrictions, but an official at the airline said he loss of the pilots would have a severe impact on its flight schedule as operations resume. The suspect pilots make up a third of PIA’s pilots.
Although PIA hasn’t been officially given the names of the dubious pilots, it isn’t assigning flights to those it believes are on the list, the airline official said. The loss-making carrier has had 12 chief executives in the last nine years, and it is now run by a serving air force officer.
A preliminary report into the May 22 crash of a PIA plane in Karachi, also released this week, found the pilot had made basic errors in his attempt to land. The crash claimed the lives of 97 passengers and crew. So far, his license is believed by officials to have been genuine.
Related Video
Three small private domestic carriers are also affected. Air Blue employs nine of the suspect pilots, and Serene Air 10 of them, while 17 are employed at a carrier called Shaheen, according to the government. Shaheen no longer operates, and it isn’t known whether the pilots are now working elsewhere.
Air Blue, which on Thursday said that it had previously checked the credentials of all its pilots and now had no one with suspect qualifications, said it was waiting for official information. Serene didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The scandal has also engulfed the regulator, the Civil Aviation Agency, which administers the pilot exams and issues the pilot licenses. Five employees were suspended from their jobs for their role, Mr. Khan said.
The pilots have to sit for eight sections as part of the exams constituting the licensing process. The minister said 121 of the pilots had cheated on one section, while 34 had cheated on all eight. The rest cheated on between 2 and 7 sections.
PIA has in recent years found 648 employees with fake high-school diplomas or university degrees, the minister said—a separate issue from the license fraud. Four pilots on the books at PIA never turned up for work but had collected their salaries as “ghost” employees in the past, he said.
Mr. Khan said that Pakistani institutions—including in the air industry—had been politicized, failed to base recruitment on merit and were undermined by corruption.
“To save a patient, he has to be put through surgery, then radiation, then chemotherapy,” said Mr. Khan. “We are trying to correct malpractices.”
Write to Saeed Shah at saeed.shah@wsj.com
Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
"with" - Google News
June 27, 2020 at 02:34AM
https://ift.tt/3g3fHSE
Pakistan Plans Criminal Charges Against Pilots With Bogus Credentials - The Wall Street Journal
"with" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3d5QSDO
https://ift.tt/2ycZSIP
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Pakistan Plans Criminal Charges Against Pilots With Bogus Credentials - The Wall Street Journal"
Post a Comment