Jaipur/ New Delhi:
Amit Mundra and Ajay Chaudhary were arrested in Jaipur late on Monday night for forging documents to qualify as pilots. Two other pilots have been arrested in recent weeks for similar charges, forcing India to confront the fact that they're placing their lives in the hands of people who really may not know what they're doing.
The men arrested today both worked with Spice Jet, and had faked 200 hours each required to operate commercial flights.
In the last few weeks, India has been left winded with what seems to be a rapidly-expanding roster of imposter pilots, all of who have been operating flights. Thirteen other pilots have been shortlisted for possibly lying about their qualifications. The records of another 4000 pilots are now under scrutiny.
Mr Mundra and Mr Chaudhary are on paper trainees of 2005 batch of the Rajasthan Flying Club.
"There was a conspiracy between these pilots and the Rajasthan Flying School. They fudged records to help pilots who had not completed the Minimum Flying Hours to become eligible for Commercial Pilot Licences," said Ajit Singh, Additional Director General of the Anti-Corruption Bureau, Rajasthan.
Investigators with the Rajasthan Anti-Corruption Bureau say all 17 'fake pilots' provided testimonial paperwork from the Flying School in Jaipur and the Haryana Institute of Civil Aviation. Some of them are still flying - pending inquiries by the airlines they work for. Feel your stomach dropping?
Mr Chaudhary, caught today, claims that he is in fact the victim and was cheated by the Rajasthan Flying School. "We were too young to realise that we should take receipts for all payments. We gave money to the Instructor of our flying school, but he didn't pass the money on to the government. We have a receipt only for the Rs. 1 lakh that we first paid. After that had we asked for receipts, they would not have allowed us to fly," he says.
To get a commercial licence as a co-pilot, a candidate must have passed class 12 with Physics and Maths, passed the flying exams of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), and have clocked at least 250 flying hours over five years.
To qualify as Captain, candidates need to have 1,500 flying hours as a co-pilot, and they must clear the DGCA's advanced flying exams.
So far, investigators have found that all sorts of documents have been forged - from marksheets for Class 12 exams for Maths and Physics, to certificates for flying hours, where flying instructors collude with candidates. While the flying club saves money, students sail through faster to the next round.
Even in examinations conducted by the DGCA, students who failed forged their marksheets and submitted these to the aviation body which did not corroborate the marks against its own records.
So if you're one of those nervous flyers, at least you haven't been worrying in vain.