In a letter to the federal government Friday, Pakistan Worldwide Airways (PIA) claimed 141 of its 450 pilots will not be “used for any traveling responsibilities” as they had “suspicious licenses.”
The letter — despatched by PIA Typical Manager Syed Qamar Maqbool — was shared with CNN on Monday by the company’s spokesperson, Abdullah Khan.
On Wednesday very last week, Pakistan Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan claimed 262 pilots in the nation “did not take the exam by themselves” and had paid out another person else to sit it on their behalf.
“They you should not have traveling encounter,” he reported.
Pakistan has 860 active pilots serving its domestic airlines — which include PIA — as nicely as a quantity of overseas carriers, Khan reported.
Khan said all significant airways across Pakistan had been supplied “lists with names” of the fake pilots, together with a ask for that “action” really should be taken to “stop them from traveling.” So significantly, PIA is the only carrier to just take action.
A lethal crash
Khan did not clarify if the two pilots on flight PK 8303 held fake licenses.
In accordance to the report, the pilots ended up chatting about coronavirus and repeatedly ignored warnings from air site visitors controllers ahead of the airplane went down in a residential space around the airport.
“The pilots were being discussing corona in the course of the flight. They ended up not focused. They talked about the coronavirus and how their households ended up influenced,” Khan mentioned, incorporating that the pilots were being “overconfident.”
According to Khan, the pilots were advised three situations by air targeted visitors controllers that the aircraft was also high and they really should not try to land, “but the captain did not shell out any heed to these directions.”
The pilots proceeded with trying to land — without decreasing the landing gear.
“The aircraft touched the runway surface area on its engines,” the report mentioned. The engines scrubbed the runway, resulting in sparks and irreparable injury.
The pilots pulled the airplane back again into the air, but the broken engines failed and triggered the aircraft to crash, according to the report.
CNN’s Sophia Saifi and journalist Adeel Raja described from Islamabad. CNN’s Sugam Pokharel documented from Atlanta. Nectar Gan contributed reporting from Hong Kong.
Coffee enthusiast. Travel scholar. Infuriatingly humble zombie fanatic. Thinker. Professional twitter evangelist.
