This is what can happen overseas
Delhi to investigate 4500 pilot licences
EVEN the most cavalier passengers knew something was amiss onboard IndiGo airlines' January 11 flight from Goa when it landed with a terrifying, lurching thud - nose wheel first - on the New Delhi tarmac.
The flight's captain, Parminder Kaur Gulati, may have been the only one that day to see nothing awry in the unconventional and perilous landing.
A subsequent investigation determined she had done it 15 times before. More distressing still was the discovery that Ms Gulati, 38, had failed one of her pilot exams and then forged her results to obtain her licence.
"Only a woman could do it,'' read an ensuing headline - one of several predictable joke lines that followed, besmirching women drivers.
As it turns out, Parminder Gulati was merely the tip of the iceberg. With a second pilot arrested for licence fraud on the weekend and an alert issued for two more absconders, India's Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi has been forced to launch a national investigation into the validity of more than 4500 Indian pilot licences.
"I have directed the DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) to examine all the licences issued in the past and to establish a procedure for more detailed verification while issuing such licences,'' Mr Ravi told parliament on Tuesday.
"I propose to set up an expert committee in the ministry to examine the current examination system, need for introduction of e-technology, new procedures and process and effective system of cross-verification of documents filed by candidates for various licences in DGCA.''
In a country where it is not uncommon for parents to present their children with a driver's licence inside their 18th birthday cards, the notion that some pilot licences may have been bought rather than earned should not come as such a surprise.
India's airlines have struggled in recent years to recruit enough pilots to keep up with demand for air travel among India's rapidly expanding middle classes.
But the revelations have shaken the community at a time when billion-dollar government corruption scams are dominating the national headlines.
Adding to the Indian aviation industry's woes - and passenger anxiety - this month is a report revealing 57 pilots were caught drunk on duty in the past two years, but only 10 were dismissed.
Mr Ravi said the remaining 47 pilots were either issued warning letters or removed from flying duties for a short period.
The Indian Pilots Guild has also called for an end to "nepotism and corruption'', citing the recruitment last year of the son of an Air India commander to its low-cost carrier Air India Express after he failed a compulsory written pilot's test.
In January this year, the same man was promoted to Air India's much sought-after Boeing 777 training program.
Last May, a plane crash in southern India killed 158 people and an official investigation later blamed it on a "sleepy pilot''
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