Now foreign-trained pilots under scanner

DGCA to check authenticity of records furnished by those who got their flying licences from abroad

DGCA to check authenticity of records furnished by those who got their flying licences from abroad

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has decided to check the authenticity of records furnished by the pilots who have got their flying training from foreign institutes.


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Director General, DGCA, E K Bharat Bhushan told MiD DAY that it would not take the documents furnished by the pilots at their face value. "We have decided to check the authenticity of the documents and the flying hours from the concerned flying schools and local civil aviation watchdogs," said Bhushan.

The audit of license holders from foreign flying schools has come up for the first time in the past one month.
Bhushan said that in a DGCA meeting held on Monday in New Delhi, three teams were set up to audit the functioning of 40 odd flying schools in the country. "The teams of officials and independent experts would begin inspection from April 18 and submit their reports within three months," sources said.

So far, 13 persons including five pilots and three DGCA officials have been arrested on charges of using forged marksheets, fudged flying hours and related documents to procure flying licenses. A Chief Training officer of a Rajasthan flying club was earlier arrested for fudging the log books of some pilots.

"During their audit, the DGCA teams will verify the logged flying hours with the log books of air traffic controllers, where the flying had taken place in controlled environment. They will also check the consumption of aviation fuel by the flying schools and their fuel bills to see if they match the flying hours clocked by their students," said a senior DGCA official.u00a0

Last week, DGCA officials also held a meeting with officials of all flying schools to put together an action plan to tackle the problem of fudging of documents for obtaining the licences. The DGCA has also decided to create nine posts in place of two at present in Flying Training Directorate. Currently there is one Director (Flying Training) and a Senior Pilot in the Directorate.

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