PIA to ground 150 pilots with ‘dubious licenses’

The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) on Thursday said that it will ground 150 pilots for possessing ‘dubious licenses.’

The announcement was made by Abdullah Hafeez, a spokesman for PIA, who said that process to fire the pilots had been initiated. “We will make it sure that such unqualified pilots never fly aircraft again,” he said.

The national carrier had acknowledged the AAIB report, saying that the carrier had already taken measures and is learning from it. The national carrier said that an independent Flight Data Monitoring setup has been established to monitor & analyze all flights. It further said that all pilots with dubious licenses will be grounded.

The development comes after Minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan revelation on Wednesday, he said that as many as 262 pilots, out of total 860 in the country, had ‘suspicious flying licences’, who would be grounded immediately.

“Their [pilots] licences are doubtful due to certain reasons including dates of examination and exams. There are some pilots, who did not appear in any paper, out of eight, but managed to get the licences. Among them are those working with the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), Airblue, Serene, private clubs and foreign airlines,” he said while talking to the media after presenting the interim inquiry report on the PIA plane crash in the National Assembly.

On May 22, the PIA flight PK 8303, carrying 99 people, including eight crew members, had crashed into residential area just before landing at the Karachi Airport, which claimed 97 lives and caused considerable damage to the residential houses.