PPRuNe Forums - Fake Licences

Just saw the following the airline accident in Pakistan earlier this year that the investigators looked at over 800 Pakistani licence holders and found 262 of them had fake licences, people of paid others to take their tests - and, get this, "had no flying experience" - Pakistan Airlines have suspended 150 of their pilots and the spokesman said they will be sacking them.

Does rather bring a whole lot of licences in to question from some obscure parts of the world and maybe closer to home - I know of a few pilots (private) in the the US who flew for decades having failed medicals and without flight reviews, but never guessed there were pilots in airliners flying commercially with fake qualifications - seems in the right rather than left seat but very, very scary.

There is no suggestion from the investigators yet that the pilots in the accident airplane had fake licences - but it does beg the question of why do a wider survey of fake licences as part of this investigation.