Interestingly, one of my assigned Indian copilots - recently out of flight school in Australia, had a brand new DGCA pilot license (ME, Commercial and Instrument) and about 300 hours TT.
By curiosity I asked to see his Australian pilot license as I had never seen one before. To my surprise his Australian pilot license only stated Single Engine, Commercial Pilot (no multi engine and no instrument rating)!
In this case, I found out all the Australian flight instructor had to do, is to endorse the student pilot logbook as well as several DGCA forms that the so called pilot had twenty hours of multi engine time and a number of approaches, as well as “passing” an in-house flight school check (in this case, exactly 20 hours of Seneca time logged, to the minute, and including one hour for the so called in-house flight check).
This particular [co]pilot never studied for and never took, never passed a real IFR written test; never took, never passed a real Multi-Engine check ride and never took, never passed a real Instrument check ride.
No wonder…
Avionimc, from the above I understand that you were the PIC on that flight and you suddenly became aware from your co-pilot that he/she had in collusion with his Australian flight Instructor/flight school forged the hours for his Multi Engine and Instrument rating.
OK, fair enough, now what are you doing about it? If the paperwork looks correct and the forgery is done well, it's quite easy to fool any regulatory authority ,be it DGCA,FAA ,JAA etc....the onus usually is on pilots not being professional liars. Is it possible to do due diligence on each and every candidate that submits paperwork for conversion of foreign license?
Now, on the other hand, to see the effectiveness of our DGCA, I would suggest you first get in touch with your flight safety department and your fleet manager and advise them anonymously(confidentially with your name missing) of the persons claims. Secondly, send the report to the DGCA .I bet you if correct, his license will be revoked/suspended and he'd be flying PC flight sims for a long time to come.
Please let us know of the outcome and this will help in keeping cheats / liars away from aviation.Sure, DGCA can go a long way in modernisation/simplification but forgery is wrong and needs to be reported ......
masalama.