FIA makes headway in PIA pilots' fake licenses scandal

• FIA has made headway in the fake pilots' licenses' scandal
• CAA officials admit taking money from pilots for exams, says FIA
• For each paper, the pilots paid Rs0.5 million, FIA probe reveals

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has made progress in the fake pilots' licenses' scandal, it emerged on Tuesday.

During interrogation, several senior Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) officials have admitted to taking money from Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) as frontmen.

According to the FIA, the probe has revealed that the pilots had paid Rs0.5 million per paper to get someone else to attempt their exams for them.

Read more: UN asks staff to avoid travelling on Pakistan-registered airlines

It is pertinent to mention here that the dubious licences claims were put forward by Federal Minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan in the National Assembly in June of last year after a PIA jet crashed in Karachi.

Sarwar had announced in the NA that of the 860 pilots working in Pakistan, 262, over 30%, had fake flying licenses. He later backtracked and used a slightly different terminology of "licenses obtained through dubious means."

This, he said, had been disclosed during a high-level investigation by a Board of Inquiry (BOI) constituted in February 2019.

Read more: Pilot license scandal, a big lie?

After this revelation, the PIA came under strict scrutiny from the international agencies and was barred from travelling to the European Union.