Pakistan to ground 150 pilots in wake of fatal crash for cheating to get licences

The move to ground the pilots comes a day after the country’s aviation minister said 262 out of 860 Pakistani pilots had ‘fake’ licences

He made the revelation while presenting preliminary findings of an investigation to parliament into a May 22 Airbus A320 aircraft crash

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The wreckage of a state-run Pakistan International Airlines aircraft at the scene of a crash on May 22. Photo: EPA

Published: 8:57pm, 25 Jun 2020Updated: 8:57pm, 25 Jun 2020

Pakistan’s state-run airline said on Thursday it will ground 150 pilots, accusing them of obtaining licences by having others take exams for them after a probe into last month’s crash that killed 97 people in Karachi.

Abdullah Hafeez, a spokesman for Pakistan International Airlines, didn’t give additional details about the cheating but said a process to fire the pilots had been initiated.

“We will make it sure that such unqualified pilots never fly aircraft again,” he told The Associated Press. He said the safety of passengers was the airline’s top priority.

The move by PIA to ground the pilots comes a day after the country’s aviation minister, Ghulam Sarqar Khan, said 262 out of 860 Pakistani pilots had “fake” licences. He made the revelation while presenting preliminary findings of an investigation to parliament into the May 22 Airbus A320 aircraft crash.

A Pakistan International Airlines plane is seen at Dubai International Airport. Photo: EPA

The announcement stunned lawmakers present in the National Assembly and shocked family members of passengers who died last month when Flight PK8303 after departing from the eastern city of Lahore went down in a congested residential area in Karachi, killing 97 people, including all the crew members. There were only two survivors and a girl died on the ground.

Neither Khan nor Hafeez released additional details about the alleged methods used by the pilots to wrongfully obtain licences to fly commercial planes. Khan said only that they did not take examinations themselves to get the required certificates, which are issued by the civil aviation authority.