Saturday, September 10, 2011

Air India Express: Aussie pilot vanishes, derostered.

Manju V, TNN | Sep 11, 2011, 02.09AM IST

Vanishing Act

* Capt Goran Pavicevic joined Air India Express as a commander in 2008

* The airline received a mail from the pilot leasing firm expressing doubts over the veracity of entries in his log book

* He took a phone call from the airline saying that he had been taken off duty and should report to the DGCA

* He checked into a hotel in Mumbai and took the first flight out of the country

MUMBAI: An Australian national working as a commander for Air India Express since 2008 went missing on Friday morning. A day earlier, the 53-year-old commander was on duty in Abu Dhabi from where he was supposed to operate a flight to Trichy.

But he received a call from the airline saying that he had been taken off duty and should report to the Director-General of Civil Aviation with his pilot's license and personal flying log book as there were doubts regarding the veracity of his documents. The commander flew back to Mumbai and, instead of going to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) office, apparently took the first flight out of India to Australia.

Air India Express has derostered the pilot. The DGCA has ordered an inquiry.

Though investigation into the matter is not over yet, it is likely that this is yet another case of fake documents submitted by a pilot to secure a commander's job. Only, in this case, it is an expatriate pilot and he has managed to evade arrest by fleeing the country.

Since the time he joined AI Express as a commander in 2008, Capt Goran Pavicevic has flown over 2,800 hours. It roughly translates to having operated about 460 flights. He was rostered to operate the Abu Dhabi-Trichy-Chennai AI Express flight IX-614 on Wednesday night.

The flight was eventually operated by another commander as, hours before the flight, the airline received a mail from Rishworth Aviation, the New Zealand-based pilot-leasing company through which Pavicevic secured a job in AI Express. The mail expressed doubts over the veracity of some flight entries in his log book. These were done prior to his appointment in AI Express.

"It seems that some flight entries in his log book were forged to meet the eligibility criteria laid down by AI Express," said a source. The airline then informed the DGCA. The aviation regulator in turn asked them to file a police case and ordered the airline to ask the commander to report to the DGCA office with documents.

"He checked into the city hotel meant for AI Express pilots, but he has not been reachable since Friday morning. We learnt that he boarded the morning Singapore Airlines flight to Singapore and from there he would have flown to Australia," the source said. Said an AI Express spokesperson: "After we received the mail, we had tipped off the Foreigner Regional Registration Office. They issued a look-out notice to the immigration authorities."

Director-General of Civil Aviation Bharat Bhushan said, "We will look into how he managed to get employed in Express." It is not known if the documents he submitted were fake, he added. The official in charge of India-operations of Rishworth Aviation said he could not comment as he would need the company's permission.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

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