(Newswire.net— July 2, 2020) — More than 30 percent of civilian pilots in Pakistan have fake pilot licenses and are not qualified to fly, the State Minister of Aviation of Pakistan revealed, Aetotime Hub reports.
Addressing the Pakistani National Assembly, Ghulam Sarwar Khan said that 262 pilots in Pakistan “did not take the exam by themselves” and paid someone else to pass the flight exam on their behalf. “They have no flying experience,” Kahn said.
Pakistan has 860 active pilots serving its domestic airlines – including those working for the leading company Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) – as well as a number of international carriers.
The airline PIA landed all its pilots who have fake licenses, and the decision took effect immediately.
“The PIA acknowledges that fake licenses are not just a matter for the PIA but for the entire Pakistani airline industry,” said spokesman Abdullah Khan, adding that some of the fake pilots also work for foreign airlines.
On May 22, a PIA plane crashed in Karachi, killing all but two of its passengers and crew members. A preliminary report on the incident was presented on Wednesday. According to the report, the pilots chatted about the coronavirus and repeatedly ignored the warnings of the air traffic controller before the plane crashed in a residential area near the airport.
Reportedly, the flight controllers told the pilots three times that the plane was too high and that they shouldn’t attempt to land “but the captain did not pay any attention to these instructions.”
Khan did not clarify whether the two pilots in flight PK 8303 had fake licenses.
The cockpit recording of last month’s crash revealed that the pilots of the plane that crashed in Pakistan, killing 98 people, were preoccupied with talking about the coronavirus, and forgot to lower the landing gear when making their approach to the airport runway, new official reports show.
A preliminary report revealed the chaotic last minutes of the flight and a bizarre series of mistakes that occurred due to poor communication with air traffic control.