Aviation regulatory body plans to cross-check the credentials of candidates who procured flying licences from foreign schools

Nudged awake by the fake pilot scam, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is not taking any chances anymore. It has now decided to verify the credentials of candidates procuring flying licences from abroad.


DGCA plans to contact its foreign counterparts to verify if flying licences procured by candidates from schools abroad are authentic

Speaking to MiD DAY, DGCA chief E K Bharatbhushan said, "All new applications received by us will be verified with competent authorities in the respective countries.

We will not issue any conversion certificate without proper verification. If any of the existing licenses are found to be fake, we will not hesitate to take action against the guilty."

Evidently, the DGCA has learnt its lesson from the case of sacked Spicejet pilot Garima, daughter of RK Passi, director, Safety, DGCA, who allegedly procured a pilot licence with fake documents.

Captain Mohan Ranganathan, member, Safety Advisory Committee of the Aviation Ministry, said, "Legally, all the licences need to be verified, but the documents cannot be examined with the flying schools in foreign countries as they are not duty-bound to reply to DGCA queries.
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So the best way to verify licences will be taking the help of aviation regulatory bodies in those countries."

"Though the role of the DGCA is being questioned in this scam after the arrest of one of its officials in Delhi, there is no dearth of clean officials in the regulatory body. They can coordinate with their counterparts in foreign countries to verify credentials of candidates procuring licences from abroad," he added.

The alleged fraud of Garima Passi came to light when authorities did an evaluation check after some trouble during her flight-training course in the US.

Passi was allegedly rusticated from the US-based flying school due to rash landing and damaging the flight. She joined the Uttarakhand-based aviation school and got her Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL) within five days of applying to the DGCA in May 2008.

The Delhi police have so far arrested six persons, including three pilots, in connection with the case of pilots procuring licences using forged mark sheets.u00a0

Last week, the Crime Branch officials arrested Pradeep Kumar, an assistant director with the DGCA, Pradeep Tyagi, a pilot who helped others to procure fake mark sheets, and his two associates Pankaj Jain and Lalit Jain were arrested from Delhi and Chennai last week.