DGCA Launches A Drive to Examine Veracity of All Pilot Licences

During the course of investigation into an incident of a Captain from a private airline landing the aircraft on its nose wheel, it was noticed that the license was obtained by the said Captain by submitting forged marksheets of Airline Transport Pilot Licence (ATPL) Examination. Subsequently, DGCA launched a drive to examine the veracity of all Pilot Licences issued in the past. While inspecting the records of ATPLs issued in the past, 5 (five) more cases of forged result cards came up and were reported to Crime Branch of Delhi Police. In respect of ATPL, almost all licences have already been examined and found to be genuine except in respect of the six detected. The DGCA has commenced examination of all Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL) records issued during the past and till date, 7 (seven) cases of submission of forged result cards have been detected. FIRs have been lodged with Crime Branch of Delhi Police in respect of all 13 cases (6 ATPL and 7 CPL). Some accused have been arrested including 3 DGCA staff members.

Apart from this, as complaints have arisen about bogus logging of flying hours in some Flying Schools, 3 Special Audit Teams have been consituted consisting of DGCA officers as well as outside experts in order to conduct detailed audit of these schools to detect malpractices if any. Cross verification has been introduced to ensure that the Directorate of Examination and the Directorate of Licencing work in close collabaration. The Central Examination Organisation (CEO) of DGCA, which is vested with the responsibility of conducting Pilot and AME Licence written examination has multi layer security and foolproof computerised system to maintain secrecy and integrity of the process. There are well defined procedures and the evaluation of answer sheets and result declaration is entirely computerised.

These facts are made known to the public in order to ensure that there is no panic as a result of media reports hinting at huge numbers of fake pilots flying civilian aircraft in the country. This is far from the truth. Strongest possible action has been initiated against persons who have resorted to unfair methods and several systematic changes are being undertaken to see that such instances do not recur in future.


VSB/PKM/PM