Following the revelation made by the Aviation Minister, Ghulam Sarwar, last month regarding the dubious licenses held by most of the Pakistan International Airline (PIA) pilots, aviation authorities of 7 countries including Malaysia and the UAE have asked Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) to verify the credentials of Pakistani pilots employed in their airlines.
Earlier this month, the Omani Civil Aviation Authority (OCAA) had requested Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) to verify the license of all Pakistani pilots working in the aviation sector in Oman to ensure public safety.
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Additionally, OCAA had warned to ban PIA from using its airspace as the former had asked the latter to explain the measures taken after the disclosure by the Aviation Minister about fake licenses of most of the national carrier’s pilots.
Responding to the request, PCAA has assured OCAA that the licenses of all pilots working in Oman have been verified once again and validly issued.
In a letter sent to the Senior Director at OCAA’s Assurance & Control department, Mubarak Al-Ghelani, the PCAA explained that all CPL/ATPL pilots employed in Oman possess genuine licenses issued by the PCAA.
The letter added that the issue of fake licenses has been misinterpreted in both national and international media and social networking platforms.
It is important to clarify that all CPL/ATPL pilot licenses issued by the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority are genuine and validly issued. None of the pilot licenses are fake, rather the matter has been misconstrued and incorrectly highlighted in the media/social media.
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CAA clarified that the matter pertains to the use of fake degrees or tests to obtain genuine licenses. PCAA reiterated to follow the policy of ‘zero tolerance’ against those who earn licenses through illicit ways and prosecute them under the Pakistan Civil Aviation Rules 1994.
PCAA has verified the credentials of 96 Pakistani pilots working in the UAE, Vietnam, Bahrain, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Turkey till now.
However, some media elements tried to put a spin on the letter in an attempt to shape public narrative against PCAA by intentionally highlighting only the part of the letter which addresses OCAA request for verification of the credentials of pilots of Pakistani origin.
In a twitter post, Quraishi on purpose wrote without mentioning that the PCAA’s letter has been issued in response to OCAA’s request rather than categorically denouncing the fake license scandal.
CAA now says that all pilot licences issued by it are “genuine and validly issued” pic.twitter.com/jz2y7GPS2c
— omar r quraishi (@omar_quraishi) July 15, 2020
Where is the resignation of CAA Chief and Aviation minister?. Why Imran Khan is silent and not taking any action?. Only because CAA officers are mainly coming from PAF so you cannot take action against them?. This is sending a bad signal to accountability and responsibility.
This is the doing of previous administrations including previous political regimens and our beloved courts, dating back to 1990. Why are you asking for resignations of present administration???
And for your info, only DG PCAA and 1 to 3 officials under him are ex-PAF, rest of the PCAA officials are all civilians. What you should be asking is, action against those officials in licensing department who where there for the past 30 years, who were themselves political appointees and obliged the politicians by issuing licences to many pilots based on fake degrees and fake qualification test results.
Please update your information as all key position is holding by PAF personnel or EX PAF personnel. Its only Civil Aviation in papers…..
You are absalutly correct ,shame on minister who without investigation issued statment about our pilots who are competent enough
He must apologize the whole nation, pilots community and then step down
Because this is norm in civilized world, as something wrong happened under their nose. They should resign under moral obligation (if they have any morals left).
That means the Aviation Minister does not have a stable mind and he was drunk