Shocking news emerged with the preliminary investigation into a deadly plane crash in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi. Investigation revealed that 30 percent of Pakistan pilots obtain licenses fraudulently. The findings of the investigation were announced Wednesday as part of a preliminary report into a plane crash that killed 97 people in the southern city of Karachi on May 22. The PIA plane crashed after taking off from Lahore, killing all but two of the passengers and crew on board. However, Khan did not clarify if the two pilots on flight PK 8303 held fake licenses. PIA spokesman Abdullah Khan mentioned that the pilots were discussing coronavirus throughout the flight and repeatedly ignored warnings from air traffic controllers before the plane went down in a residential area near the airport.
“The pilots were discussing corona throughout the flight. They were not focused. They talked about the coronavirus and how their families were affected,” Khan said, adding that the pilots were “overconfident.”
They attempted to land without lowering their landing gear, resulting in the engines scraping the runway in a shower of sparks. The aircraft’s badly damaged engines then failed during a second attempted landing and it crashed into a residential area in Karachi.
In Pakistan’s National Assembly, Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said that Pakistan has 860 active pilots serving its domestic airlines, including the country’s International Airlines (PIA) flagship and number of foreign carriers as well. He further said 262 pilots in the country “did not take the exam themselves” and had paid someone else to sit it for them. In the wake of the alarming findings, PIA grounded all pilots holding fake licenses with immediate effect.
PIA acknowledges the AAIB report and have already taken measures learning from it. An independent Flight Data Monitoring setup established to monitor & analyze all flights. All pilots with dubious licenses will be grounded. Safety is more imp. than any commercial interest
— PIA (@Official_PIA) June 24, 2020
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