These dangerous pilots

After flying licences of 14 pilots were revoked for faking records, the DGCA flies into correction mode

When Capt Parminder Kaur Gulati landed the IndiGo flight on the nose wheel in Goa on January 8, 2011, perhaps she did not realise the incident would blow the lid off the devious route she and many others like her used to procure a commander licence. Nor did the more than 100 lucky passengers of the low-cost airline. Landing on the front wheel is a strict no-no and against the basics of flying.

The 38-year-old Gulati, whose rule book says the two sets of large rear wheels should touch the tarmac first, followed by the small wheels below the cockpit, was arrested on March 8. The incident woke up a Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) from slumber. The aviation regulator, on inquiry, found that Gulati, who commanded IndiGo flights for two years and cleared a ‘tough’ DGCA test that enables co-pilots become commanders, had in reality flunked in the exams but produced a fake certificate in 2009 to obtain the coveted Airlines Transport Pilot Licence (ATPL).

With the DGCA inquiry, the rot in the system spilled over. Capt J K Verma - who was flying Air India planes for 22 years – was arrested for forgery as he used fake marksheets to obtain his licence.

Obviously, these arrests brought into sharp focus the nexus between DGCA officials – the authority to issue commercial pilot licences (CPL) – and the tainted pilots, not to speak of the flying schools and touts. Garima Passi, daughter of a senior official of DGCA and a pilot with SpiceJet, resigned after she was found to have allegedly procured a CPL through fraudulent means.

The Delhi Police arrested DGCA official Pradeep Kumar who expedited senior pilot licences, flying school instructor Pradeep Tyagi who liaised between Kumar and touts. Kumar confessed to having handed out licences to around 60 pilots.

These shocking exposes brought to the fore the dangers involved in taking a flight by an unsuspecting passenger. As media highlighted the pilot-DGCA-flying schools nexus, the government sat up, took notice and launched some steps to stem the rot.

There are about 40 flying schools in the country which offer pilot training. To get a commercial pilot licence, which costs between Rs 10 and Rs 20 lakh, one needs to accumulate a minimum of 250 flying hours.

Of this, 150 hours have to be solo, 25 hours of cross-country flying, 10 hours of instrument flying (where you rely on the plane's instruments alone and no external assistance) and five hours of flying in the night. The DGCA is the CPL issuing authority after written and medical tests. When airlines hire pilots, they again go through a test and medical examination.

Tough exam behind racket?

Any pilot with a commercial pilot licence (CPL) can fly with an airline as a co-pilot but needs at least 2,000 hours of flying experience to become a commander for which he/she has to appear for a test conducted by the DGCA and get the Airlines Transport Pilot Licence (ATPL).

The DGCA tests are tough and this was also the reason for the racket to thrive.
Soon after the racket was busted, Civil aviation minister Vayalar Ravi constituted an expert committee to probe the issue and ordered an audit of flying schools. “This is a big fraud played on human lives. There will be no leniency towards anyone. We will strictly abide by the laws,” he asserted. Ministry secretary Nasim Zaidi and DGCA head E K Bharat Bhushan said all the 10,000 pilots in the country are under review. Air India  CMD Arvind Jadhav appointed a 3-member committee to scrutinise the records of their pilots.

Although the ministry has not spelt out the modus operandi of the expert committee, a senior official told Deccan Herald that the panel led by Bhushan will include representatives from allied organisations and experts such as those with consultants KPMG. If required, the committee may invite stake holders to present their views. “The panel will set up two sub-committees - one to go into the examination system and the other into licencing. The first meeting was held on April 1 and a report will be submitted to the minister within five weeks. The internal review of pilots and audit of flying schools will proceed simultaneously, for which help has been sought from Airports Authority of India and Pawan Hans (the helicopter wing of the ministry)”, the official said.

With the role of the DGCA coming into the limelight, the safety watchdog appears ill-equipped to carry out the onerous task. It has an acute shortage of manpower. Sudhakar Reddy, president of Air Passengers Association of India said: “DGCA does not have the wherewithal to undertake its tasks. It has a total staff strength of 130, including clerks, drivers and peons. In a metro like Chennai, it has just three staffers, including a peon; you can imagine the state of other offices. It shows the callousness of Civil aviation ministry towards safety. No one seems to care for the safety of passengers.”

Aviation expert Capt Mohan Ranganathan, however, plays down the panic. He told Deccan Herald: "Though the role of the DGCA is being questioned in this scam after the arrest of one of its officials in Delhi, there is no dearth of clean officials in the regulatory body.” According to him, the rot set in between 2004 and 2008 when the air traffic boom began. Kanu Gohain, who was the DGCA boss during the period, shot back: “As far as fake licences are concerned, if somebody has punctured the system, he should be penalised. If some fake licences were issued during my tenure, I am willing to face any probe.”

As the aviation sector took off in a big way in 2004, the country needed pilots in large numbers.

Now, air traffic is growing at a fast clip of 20 per cent and 4.5 million passengers take to the skies every month. Over half a dozen airlines fly 500 aircraft.

Spring-cleaning on

Bharat Bhushan says in a bid to cleanse the system of unqualified pilots, the DGCA has asked all airlines to monitor the hiring and training of co-pilots in a more effective manner and file a monthly status report. “In order to combat fudging of records, the DGCA plans to have an online option for applicants, beginning with examination centres, by July. We are working with the National Informatics Centre on this project and it should be in place soon”. On the training schools, he said: "I want to examine the conditions and quality of training they are imparting. My intention is to involve an independent team for a third-party systematic audit of these schools.” The DGCA is also planning radio frequency identification documents for pilot licenses which cannot be fudged. This is part of the Rs 350 crore computerisation project taken up in 2007. As regards personnel strength, Bhushan disclosed that 500 new posts have been sanctioned and recruitment was on. While foreign pilots too will come under the scanner, the DGCA will also look into licences obtained by Indians from training schools abroad.

The government’s plan to create an online national registry of pilots with a complete dossier on every pilot, holds out the hope that fudging of papers will soon be history as it promises transparency and cleansing of the system.
                                                                 

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