40% of Pakistani pilots hold fake flying licenses: Aviation Minister

[Cpt. Underpants]

How about the SAA “fake licence “ holder who cheated on his exams, and went on to become Chief Of Standards?

[charliegolf]

Originally Posted by zukini

Is this just the start of the story. If the pilots have cheated there way to the front the rest of the organisations need to be looked at with some urgency. across the board. Do we also have a lot of ATC and engineers too. This is a human issue that needs solving, wherever and from whatever culture this comes from.

Dunno, but a consultant heart doc I know assures me it works for doctors too. They (maybe used to?) keep logbooks of procedures they've observed and done.

[INSCRINIUM]

Originally Posted by DeanoP

I am intrigued to know how pilots with fake licences and fictitious flying hours pass the airline's acceptance checks and demanding simulator scenarios? Does the corruption extend to the airline's training and examination staff?

Well, counterintuitively, there may well exist people who are competent at handling the aircraft but rubbish at exams. They would do well in the sim (highly motivated) but for whatever reason cheated their way through ground school...

[Fire and brimstone]

What is of additional interest, if the 40% figure is true (1% would be 'bad'), is how these folk go on to pass sims and recurrent.

If you have not passed flight tests, etc, how could you pass a sim, licence test??

[parkfell]

If they play it with a straight bat, the licences are revoked. All previous NULL & VOID
Back to square ONE as student pilot.
That is how the UK CAA have played it in the past.....

[vilas]

This accident may not be purely the result of fake license even with gunuine license similar crashes have happened. And an individual here and there may beat the system in any country. But the ability of such large number of people to get licenses, get selected in airlines, successfully go through their training programs and transition from right to left and subsequently become trainers themselves shows the rot is very deep. It's not just professionally mediocre but the criminal minds eventually take over power centres of Unions etc. and make it impossible to change the system. That is very frightening.

[Pilot DAR]

Well, counterintuitively, there may well exist people who are competent at handling the aircraft but rubbish at exams

Very certainly, there are such pilots, I know a few. However, they keep themselves entirely in the private flying world, solo, in a plane they own. In times past, great hands and feet might have got you through, but today, the complex systems of an airliner, and complex airspace, surely would require a good working knowledge of "groundschool" type things.....

[Blackfriar]

Originally Posted by Blacksheep

I used to work with a Pakistani man who told me that one of his relatives had moved to UK using his brother's passport and degree certificate and was living and working in UK as a civil engineer despite never having graduated. Is there any way to combat such things? I doubt it.

It's suprising during my admittedly non-flying and non-doctoring career that I have been asked for exam certificates only once, even though the qualifications were said to be "an advantage" in the job ad. Why do people not check? With grade creep my MBA from 1991 is probably now equivalent to a PHD.

[Jack D]

Need a PhD ? Look no further check out this company based in ... you guessed it, Pakistan no less

Axact

Lots of diploma mill information on YouTube etc.quite incredible? but hardly surprising .

As you said employers should check more diligently, on the other hand HR depts are not immune to corruption themselves .

[Wally777]

It's 25+ years ago now but I was a delegate at an IFLPA Accident Analysis Conference when PIA sent a couple of their pilots to talk to the committee following an accident they had had into Kathmandu. It was refreshing to chat with these pilots and realise like myself, they were family men, wanting to do a safe days flying and return home to their families. The real difference which became apparent was the difference in attitude between my employer to flight safety and how much my company invested in our safety compared to theirs. I have never forgotten this aspect.

[meleagertoo]

Something that our industry might take as pause for thought is that if such a large percentage of Pakistani pilots have not taken/passed the required training then what does that say about the usefulness or essential nature of that training?
40% of a nation's pilots is a statistically significant number but despite Pakinstans poor accident record by Western standards I wonder if the rate is anywhere near as high as might be expected given that figure.
On the acceptance of the figure of 40% how then is the accident rate so low given that almost half their pilots are not properly vetted?
Could it be that the vast scope and depth of Western training actually doesn't make all that much difference? That given time anyone with a modicum of ability and either a sharp pencil or a large wallet will get familiar enough to make a decent fist of it? I have come across one ot two pilots in Eu who conform to that description who have seemed quite reasonable pilots, except in pressurised circumstances.

Heretical ideas, probably. - But surely worth examining as the accident rate even in Pakistan doesn't seem to me to be even remotely close to fitting with a 40% absence of competency, licencing or examination among its pilots?

I am in no way at all justifying or promoting a reduction in training or standards, but one must ask the question that if woeful training and standards are so widespread in Pakistan why aren't their aeroplanes dropping out of the sky like flies? - we're talking 40% of pilots remember! What's the statistical likelyhood of having just one of those on board on any two crew flight? I'm not a statistician, someone else can provide that figure - but it's a bloody sight higher than 40%
So how do they get away with it?
That - 'how do they' - is something that needs to be seriously looked at and not swept under the carpet as it must have a great deal to say about Western training methods, their usefulness and efficacy.

It may well be that it really isn't too hard to fly a modern airliner fairly safely with a modicum of training until something goes wrong -especially something a bit beyond the 'normal oh-so-predictable sim emergencies", such as a situation where you land on the nacelles, deploy reverse, select TOGA, select gear down, then right back up again...and go around!

Or failing to trim a perfectly flyable aeroplane with a perfectly serviceable trim system because you've 'forgotten' you had TOGA set and you're busting VNe with flap deployed...and just gave up trying?

Or failing to recognise a simple stall all the way down from Fl380.

Food for thought - or shoot me down?

Do I hear the sound of quiet weeping from the Gods of - I'm about to swear here - @irmansh!p?

Please don't take these ideas as any hobbyhorse of mine, that aren't. I merely present them as (somewhat contentious) items for discussion that might just bring up some ideas for the betterment of Aviation.

[BDAttitude]

P(none fraudulent)= 0.6^2 = 0.36
P(one fraudulent) = 2*0.6*0.4 = 0.48
P(both fraudulent) = 0.4^2 = 0.16

Every pilot operating with more than one engine should be able do do this calculation after passing ground school ;-)

[Check Airman]

This accident makes a case for increased training, if anything. Had the crew been better trained, this would've been nothing more than a go around. No paperwork required.

[meleagertoo]

BDAttitude.
I passed CAA groundschool to ATPL plus UK military flight training and haven't a clue what your hieroglyphics mean, it is not a mathematical system I find recognisable.
Perhaps you'd be good enough to describe its importance instead of implying that pilots who don't understand it are somehow wanting in knowledge - unlike your good self...

I suspect it is something to do with statistics in which case your originial premise re 'every pilot" (PPL too apparently!) amounts to no more than unwarranted and arrogant superiority as stats aren't a part of any pilot traning, single engine, multi engine, glider or helicopter I ever came across...

Please - explain! Do!

[meleagertoo]

This accident makes a case for increased training, if anything. Had the crew been better trained, this would've been nothing more than a go around. No paperwork required.

Self evident.
But you're missing my point completely.
Look deeper into what is trained and why, and how much of it is really essential or useful.
Are exams on dry adiabatic lapse rates or precession in a magnetic conpass either necessary ot relevant? Who really needs to understand the errors in an IVSI or why a third sector climb rate is critical?

And how well evidently numerous reasonably capable people around the world seem able to get along for whole careers without it.

[Big Pistons Forever]

I think that a country where such a substantial portion of the pilot community may not have legitimate qualifications can only exist if the everyone is complicit, the regulator, the commercial enterprises, the training facilities and the pilots themselves.

So what is a practical achievable solution, short term, medium term and long term ?

This matters to every professional pilot as any public perception that the crew flying their airliner may not have valid credentials and the appropriate skill is harmful to everyone,and no I don't think that your average SLF is able to understand the differences in training, checking and certification standards between the crew flying a PIA Airbus and the crew flying their Airbus.

[Peter H]

meleagertoo

The OP's point is that -- if 40% of pilots have fraudulent credentials -- then for two-person crews
36% of flights will have 2 qualified pilots on the flight deck
48% of flights will have only 1 qualified pilot on the flight deck
16% of flights will have no qualified pilots on the flight deck

[AmIInsane]

Pakistan and India (Africa and most of Asia too) can also audit their qualified Doctors, Dentists, Accountants, Engineers and MBA’s.

Many of whom leave for the US/UK/Can/Aus/NZ/Europe as ‘skilled migrants’.

[Chris2303]

However when doctors get to NZ they become taxi drivers because they can't get a practising certificate without (I think) 3 years study in a NZ institution

[UnreliableSource]

Originally Posted by Peter H

The OP's point is that -- if 40% of pilots have fraudulent credentials -- then for two-person crews
36% of flights will have 2 qualified pilots on the flight deck
48% of flights will have only 1 qualified pilot on the flight deck
16% of flights will have no qualified pilots on the flight deck

There is unlikely to be a random distribution of "pilots". Those involved will understand what is going on. The system has probably adapted so that what is really happening is continued flying lessons during scheduled passenger services.

Outside aviation it is accepted that 25% of job applicant CV's contain outright fabrications. The world still adapts somehow. I certainly come across people who don't know the basics of subjects they have postgraduate qualifications in. In the good times they can lie their way up the ladder. In the bad times, well... they were the cause of the bad times.