Fake licences: DGCA to tighten the selection process for pilots

MUMBAI | NEW DELHI: Aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation ( DGCA), has drawn up measures to tighten the selection process for pilots flying scheduled airlines to check the menace of fake licences which threatens passenger safety.

The fresh guidelines, which will be announced next week, will mainly comprise measures to change the process to issue licences and better coordination between the DGCA’s central exam office and licence issuing unit and introduction of a special software to conduct online examination by July. “To begin with, we will tweak the licence issuance process. Also, we will ensure that there is cross checking of pilots’ mark sheets between the exam office and the licence issuing unit so that there greater transparency and less room for mistakes,” said Bharat Bhushan, Director General of Civil Aviation.

The issue of fake licence came to the fore during the first week of March when Delhi police arrested Captain Parminder Kaur Gulati, a women pilot for IndiGo Airlines, after DGCA found that she had been issued a commercial pilot’s licence in 2009 on the basis of a fake-marksheet.

This was followed by 22 such arrests. While seven of them have been air transport pilots, the rest are commercial pilot licence holders from Jaipur Flying Club.

Flying clubs like Jaipur Flying Club allegedly logged in false flying hours to help their candidates secure CPL. Minimum of 200 hours of flying is required to secure CPL.

The discovery of such frauds have forced the DGCA to review the documents of over 4,500 pilots in the country.
“At present, we are trying to find the magnitude of the problem and have gone through the documents of 1,700 ATPL pilots and we will review the documents of all the 4,500 flying pilots. But I cannot say definitely how many cases will finally come to the fore,” said Mr Bhushan in an exclusive interview with ET. “Nothing is to be given on the basis of certificates produced. No licence will be issued by the licensing directorate without the master copy available with the office.”

Aviation experts and pilots believe that the lack of proper coordination in DGCA is helping the process of getting fake licences through forgery.

“Co-ordination between the arms of DGCA like the examination arm and the licensing arm needs to be improved. The airlines should understand that the DGCA is not a policing arm and they should also take responsibility of examining papers,” said Kanu Gohain, who was the director general of civil aviation for two years till 2007.

The DGCA is also looking at developing special software that would enable the pilots to take the exam online and also deliver results instantaneously, cutting the long wait of two months. “We have been contemplating since 2007 to introduce online examination and are now working with the National Informatics Centre to introduce such an option by July,” Mr Bhushan said.