MOSCOW – Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has launched criminal investigations into 50 pilots and five civil aviation officials on suspicion of falsification of licences, reported Sputnik news agency, quoting Reuters report citing government sources and cabinet meeting minutes.
Earlier, the country’s Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said that the Pakistani authorities would ban 262 pilots, including 141 pilots of Pakistan International Airlines, because their flight licences were dubious. The minister said these pilots could have faked the results of one to eight tests.
A notice to one of the pilots seen by the news agency said the FIA was probing “alleged corruption, violations, malpractices in (the) issuance of flight crew licences.”
“The cabinet was told that FIA has opened proceedings into the pilots whose licences were revoked, and the civil aviation officials who connived with them,” according to the minutes from the meeting cited by Reuters.
–BERNAMA
