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EU suspends PIA for six months over fake pilot licence scam
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IANS | 30 Jun, 2020
In a major setback to Islamabad, the European Union has suspended
Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) for six months over its fake pilot
licence scandal.
In an official letter, the European Union
Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said that though the PIA claims that it
has grounded all pilots that were part of the list of fraudulent licence
holders compiled by the Pakistani authorities, it does not mitigate its
concern, as there are strong indications that a high number of
Pakistani pilot licences are invalid.
"EASA therefore no longer
has confidence that Pakistan, as the state of operator, can effectively
ensure that operators certified in Pakistan comply at all times with
applicable requirement for crew qualification," in particular with the
standards laid down in the Chicago convention.
The agency
conveyed its decision to the PIA saying that in accordance to the laws
of the European Parliament and Council, the EASA suspends the Third
Country Operator (TCO) authorization to PIA which had been issued on May
17, 2016. The suspension comes into effect from July 1, 2020 in all the
EU member states. In its list of reasons for the suspension of
the airlines, the EASA cited the fact that despite enough time, the PIA
was yet to ensure safety data management, risk assessment and analysis
including the statistical analysis and the ability to identify repeated
or similar hazards/occurrences. The EASA said PIA had provided
insufficient evidence about the implementation of safety measures and
since December 2019 had not been processing its safety reports.
The
PIA, according to the EASA, had failed to develop extended guidance to
facilitate the understanding and the application of the management of
change and training for the involved staff. The EASA said that the PIA
had submitted documents related to the measurement of Safety Performance
Indicators (SPI) which revealed that some of the SPIs were controlled
by different departments with different target settings.
The
letter said the PIA provided evidence of the correction of the
calculation errors of the SPIs for the 2018, where EASA found some major
inconsistencies, and even illogical, for instance the input for the
SPIs are performed in flight hours, but the formula calculates number of
landings. The submitted corporate SPIs do not contain all indicators
measured by the department themselves," the letter said.
"Following
the tragic events that PIA has faced, including flight PK8303 on May
22, 2020 and the initial findings laid down in the preliminary accident
report showing successive breaches of multiple layers of safety defenses
in the safety management system, EASA is concerned that the safety
management system is not achieving its primary objective," the EU agency
said.
The PIA has the right to appeal against the decision
within two months from now. The EASA also has the right to extend the
suspension of the airlines for additional three months after the six
month suspension period is over, if it is not satisfied that successful
corrective action has been taken by PIA.
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