‘One out of three pilots in Pakistan have fake licenses’, says minister

More than 30% of civilian pilots in Pakistan have fake licenses and are not qualified to fly, the country’s aviation minister has revealed.

Addressing Pakistan’s National Assembly, Ghulam Sarwar Khan said 262 pilots in the country “did not take the exam themselves” and had paid someone else to sit it on their behalf. “They don’t have flying experience,” he said.

Pakistan has 860 active pilots serving its domestic airlines — including the country’s Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flagship — as well as a number of foreign carriers.

PIA has grounded all its pilots who hold fake licenses, effective immediately.

“PIA acknowledges that fake licenses are not just a PIA issue but spread across the entire Pakistani airline industry,” spokesperson Abdullah Khan said, adding that some of the fake pilots also fly for foreign carriers.

On May 22, a PIA plane crashed in Karachi killing all but two of the passengers and crew on board. The preliminary investigation report on the incident was tabled on Wednesday. According to the report, the pilots were chatting about the coronavirus and repeatedly ignored warnings from air traffic controllers before the plane went down in a residential area near the airport.

According to Khan, the pilots were told three times by air traffic controllers that the plane was too high and they should not attempt to land, “but the captain did not pay any heed to these instructions.”

Khan did not clarify if the two pilots on flight PK 8303 held fake licenses.