Hanoi
All Pakistani pilots working in Vietnam were given clean chit by the government after they were grounded pending clearance from the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority amid the fake licences saga.
“They have valid and legitimate licences and none have been involved in a flight incident or safety threat,” read a statement issued on Saturday.” All licenses administered by the Pakistani aviation regulator are legitimate and valid. There are no fake licenses, as mentioned by the media,” a government statement said, citing a note from the Pakistani Embassy to the Vietnamese government.
Vietnam had licensed 27 Pakistani pilots and 12 of them were still active. The other 15 pilots’ contracts had expired or were inactive due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to Vietnam’s Civil Aviation Authority.
Pakistan last month had grounded almost a third of its pilots after discovering they may have falsified their qualifications. Federal Minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan, while briefing the National Assembly on a plane crash had said: “The inquiry which was initiated in February 2019 showed that 262 pilots did not give the exam themselves and asked someone else to give it on their behalf,” adding that the pilots did not have the proper flying experience either.—Reuters
