At a time when fake pilot licences are giving sleepless nights to the aviation sector, the civil aviation ministry has ordered an audit of the 40-odd flying schools in the country and made it clear no leniency would be shown.
“The issue is very serious. All the flying schools in the country will be audited and no leniency will be shown to anybody. We will go very strongly by abiding by the laws and every angle would be looked into,” said Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi.
There are about 40 flying schools in the country, of which over 12 to 13 are run by the government, and the rest by private bodies. These institutes allegedly provide fake flying hours to the students for extra money. Instead of actually training the aspiring pilots for 100 hours, many institutes train them only for 75 hours, and by this they make better profit and extra money.
Checks are also being introduced for students going to countries where manipulations in flying schools are known to be rampant. The airlines say they already double check the pilots coming from countries like the Philippines, where flying schools provide flying hours certificates without actually training the pilots.
Meanwhile, to check pilots with fake qualification degrees, the aviation ministry plans to start conducting a nationwide common entrance test for getting admission into flying schools.
This will help them in checking students’ knowledge of essential aviation topics like physics, avionics and maths.
This exam, roughly on lines of IITs’ joint entrance exam, could be conducted under the aegis of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the aviation regulator.