Malaysia verifies licences of Pakistani pilots

KARACHI: Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has verified licences of 16 out of 17 Pakistani pilots who are currently employed at Malaysia Airlines, ARY News reported on Monday.

Earlier, the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM) had asked Pakistani authorities to provide information of pilots employed by the operator in view of recent reports of fake licences.

The Malaysian aviation authorities had earlier sought details of 14 pilots and later requested to verify the credentials of three more aviates who have received their licences in Pakistan.

Read: Bahrain seeks to verify licences of Pakistani pilots employed in its airline

After the timely verification of the licences, the CAAM management has thanked the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority for cooperation.

On July 2, the Malaysian aviation authority had warned to revoke licences of pilots who were issued licences by Pakistani operator if CAA failed to verify the information.

In its letter sent by CAAM deputy director of the flight operations division, CAA had been asked to submit the information of the pilots’ licences by July 3.

Read: PIA suffers Rs33 bn loss amid flight ban over pilots issue

CAAM also issued directives to local operators to ‘temporarily suspend their pilot who is issued with Pakistan pilot licence from operating flights until their licences can be verified by Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority. Once verification has been carried out, the CAAM will inform operators for their reinstatement immediately.’

It is pertinent to mention here that many countries including the United States (US), European Union (EU), Britain, African airlines and Bahrain government had also asked the CAA to provide the detailed information aviates after the emergence of licence scandal.