Sparks fly as DGCA, schools pass the buck

Mumbai: As the fake pilot licence scam grows bigger, with 13 pilots and commanders arrested so far for forging mark sheets and inflating flight training hours, the aviation authority and training schools have brought out the daggers against each other.
The directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) on March 22 called a meeting of the 40 flying training schools (FTS) in India and warned them of stringent action, while the latter allege that if the regulator was indeed serious about the issue, it could have been resolved long ago.
In the meeting, DGCA hinted at tightening the noose around the schools.
Reacting to DGCA’s allegation that some schools help students log in extra flying hours than they have actually flown to complete the mandatory 200 hours flying, the schools say that the regulator needs to look at the ground beneath its feet. “.. The marksheets are issued by DGCA and it needs to check its own house,” said YN Sharma, chief operating officer (COO), Chimes Academy, Madhya Pradesh.
“The regulator has a system of cross-checking the numbers of hours logged in by students. For instance, DGCA can audit and co-relate the total number of hours flown by the students in a year with the fuel consumption of aircraft run by that academy. It can check consumption of 100 LL fuel, a kind of aviation fuel used only for aircraft of flying schools, which is procured from a sole provider, ie, Indian Oil Company. If the school is showing more hours than the fuel consumption, it can be caught easily,” he said.
“This is a scam run in collusion of DGCA officials in the licensing department and the chief examiners office (CEO). The CEO handles the marksheets while the licensing department issues the license. If they want to catch the culprits they should install CCTVs in their own campus rather than pass the buck,” said a North-based FTS which did not wished to be named.
24/03/11 Daily News & Analysis

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Mar 2011