NEW DELHI: A senior
commander of Air India (domestic) has got a month to prove that he
actually completed schooling — successfully — or else lose his flying
license forever. The directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) on
Wednesday gave him a month to confirm beyond doubt that the Class 12
certificate he gave to qualify for a commercial pilot license (CPL) was
genuine.
"If he fails to do that, the DGCA will cancel his CPL.
The basic requirement of a CPL is passing Class 12 with physics and
maths, apart from scoring at least 70% in English. So if someone
fraudulently manages to get a CPL without meeting the minimum
qualification criteria, the license is invalid," said an official.
The commander flies Airbus A-320 aircraft. AI has decided not to ground him as it can't act against him till proven guilty.
The
pilot's trouble started when his sister complained to the DGCA and AI
that her brother had given a fake certificate to become a pilot. "This
person's entire family is of pilots. His father retired from AI and his
two siblings (not the one who complained) are also pilots. The fight in
the family is possibly due to some property dispute which led to the
sister complaining against her real brother," said sources.
The
latest controversy has revived memories of the fake pilot issue that
scared flyers about five years back. At that time, it was discovered
that a number of pilots had given false documents to get their CPLs.
Worse, some had even fudged flying training records to get this coveted
license.
The DGCA had then launched a massive cleanup operation
to weed out unqualified pilots and cracked down on some flying schools
who would give false flying hours to trainees for a fee — without actual
flying.
DGCA chief Prabhat Kumar is learnt to have ordered a
thorough check of all flying schools in India. "We hope to complete this
exercise at the earliest," said an official.
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