25 foreign pilots axed for poor English

New Delhi: Not knowing English well has cost 25 foreign pilots their jobs in India. The pilots, mostly from eastern Europe , flunked the oral exam in English conducted by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation , which validates licences of pilots for flying in India.
In all, 560 foreign pilots are flying passenger planes in India as the burgeoning demand for trained personnel has far outstripped the supply. Each such pilot has to get his or her licence validated for flying in India at DGCA. And while testing their knowledge of the country’s aviation regulations and operating procedures, DGCA also sees if they are able to understand and speak English the Indian way.
__________________________

Poor English have caused
near misses
Indian officials have put at least part
of the blame for the near misses on
bad communication between pilots
and air traffic controllers, and on
Thursday civil aviation authorities
said they were trying to fix the problem
by forcing out pilots with poor English
skills. There are about 560 foreign
commercial pilots flying in India.
English is also the language of educated
India, although Hindi is much more
widely spoken across the country of
more than 1 billion people.
India's airports handled 51 million
domestic passengers in the last fiscal
year that ended March 31, up 28
percent from the previous year,
according to the Center for Asia Pacific
Aviation, a consulting firm in
Sydney, Australia.
15/02/07 Muneeza Naqvi/AP/Forbes, US
__________________________
"In the past one year, we have not given clearance to 25 foreign pilots to fly in India as they were not found proficient in English in the oral exams,” said Kanu Gohain, directorgeneral of DGCA.
“There are well laid out language standards set up by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and these pilots did not meet them.’’
Biggest language constraints are faced by pilots hailing from eastern Europe, CIS countries and Indonesia.
16/02/07 Saurabh Sinha/Economic Times

To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

Categories: foreign feb 2007, safety feb 2007