DGCA to bring over 10,000 CLP holders under scanner

New Delhi, Mar 21 (PTI) India's Aviation regulator
Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) plans to bring
under the scanner over 10,000 commercial pilot license (CPL)
holders and conduct third-party audit of all flying schools in
the country in the wake of cases of forgery behind securing of
licences coming to light.
As the forgery cases have given rise to fears that
travellers' life is being endangered by incompetent pilots,
the regulator is planning a slew of steps to check the
malaise.
Apart from this, the regulator is also worried about
the problems faced by a large number of Indian youths, who go
abroad for training and return with fake or invalid
licenses, after spending lakhs of rupees.
Besides the six cases of pilots using forged documents
to get their licenses, "we have got some more suspicious
cases, but there is nothing confirmed as yet and
investigations are going on," DGCA chief E K Bharat Bhushan
told PTI here.
The six cases of forged documents that have come to
light are two each from air carriers IndiGo and SpiceJet and
one each from Air India and MDLR.
While all the 4,000-odd holders of Airline Transport
Pilot Licenses (ATPLs) are currently being probed, the
Directorate General of Civil Aviation is "considering looking
into all the CPLs", he said. There are over 10,000 CPL holders
in the country.
In a bid to combat fudging of records, the DGCA is
determined to have an online option for students, beginning
with "at least in some (examination) centres, by July," the
Director General said, adding, "We are working with the
National Informatics Centre on this project" that should be in
place soon.
Asked whether flying training schools were following
stringent standards laid down by the regulator, Bhushan said:
"There have been cases ... there is suspicion that at least
some of the flying hours that they are logging in the
student's log books, are not genuine".
He also indicated that problems relating to training
infrastructure have also been found.
These training academies provide flight training and
issue CPLs to the successful students. A separate set of
aviation regulations or Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR) have
also been framed for such institutions.
"I want to examine the condition and quality of
training they are giving. We have to ensure that the
conditions and quality of training are maintained. My
intention is to have a team from outside, a third-party
systematic audit of these schools," Bhushan said.
There are about 40 flying schools in India.
Under the CAR, a flying school gets a license which
is valid for a year. It is renewed after a DGCA inspection and
"on satisfying that the institutes maintain their required
capability. The inspection is carried out as per the
standardised check-list", the DGCA chief said.