Jaipur/New Delhi:
The Rajasthan Flying School is emerging as the epicentre of the fake pilot racket. It ran inside the Jaipur airport for 30 years till 2008 from two meagre rooms and one old aircraft.
The shutdown came in 2008 because the aircraft was grounded.
With such scant resources, how did it train so many students for so many years?
From fake flights to fake flying hours, it seems the Rajasthan Flying School was open to all kinds of shady deals to mint money for its officials and clinch licences for students.
According to the Rajasthan Anti-Corruption Bureau, between 2004 and 2008, the Chief Flying Instructor here took money from students to fudge records of their flying hours. This way the flying club saved money on fuel, earned bribes and the student got their licenses faster.
So while trainees must have a minimum experience of 250 flying hours to avail a licence, at least 13 pilots trained there flew only 40-50 hours.
The ACB found these students were flying even on days the school's aircraft was grounded for maintenance work.
The Additional Director General of Rajasthan's Anti-Corruption Bureau, Ajit Singh says, "During our scrutiny of records it often seems that getting a Car Driving Licence would be a lot tougher than getting these pilot licences.''
Anuj Chaudhary, a Spice Jet pilot arrested in the case, admits, ''Officials of the school took bribes from students. Each of us paid Rs. 3.5 lakh.'' Now the watch-dog of aviation and the body in-charge of overseeing air safety in India, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation is talking tough.
Bharat Bhushan, Director General of Civil Aviation says, ''Probably the oversight that the DGCA is expected to exercise over these flying clubs is inadequate. But we are putting together a special audit of these 40 schools and we are going to be very strict. If there are any kind of deviation, we have to cancel the schools.''
The aviation sector has seen a huge expansion in the last few years. Trying to keep pace the aviation watchdog has obviously slipped up but it asks, can the airlines completely dodge blame?
Mr. Bhushan says, "There are safety directorates in each airline. How is it that a person with inadequate landing procedure is continuing to land the plane?''
Though aviation experts say that airlines cannot exempt themselves entirely from this, the buck finally stops with the DGCA, that issues the licences.
Aviation Expert, Captain D. S. Mathur says, "It's a very serious thing that today pilots are flying with fake licences. It is disastrous playing around with people's lives like this. Different agencies pointing a finger at each other will serve no purpose. First and foremost it is the responsibility of the DGCA who is the custodian of air safety, to issue licences, to look after total air safety of the country. The DGCA should not say that I am not responsible. Be bold enough, admit that you have black sheep in your system. And give them such a punishment that not only will they learn a lesson it will be a deterrent for others to come.''
Already Air India has appointed an internal inquiry into the allegations, suspended one of the pilots and taking the other off flying duty. Spice Jet has sacked the pilots in question. And Jet Airways has issued a statement saying they will act as per DGCA regulations.
But it won't be easy to calm anxiety, clearly pre-occupying the minds of flyers around the country.
Pranay, boarding a flight for Coimbatore from Mumbai said, "Just like international flights have well trained pilots, we assume that happens here. We were hoping at least the aviation industry will be free of corruption that seems to have flourished in the rest of the country. I think the DGCA is responsible for this."
Neeraj Bhargav said, "If reliability of a flight is 99%, you won't board it. And if the reliability of the pilot himself is 0%, then definitely it hurts us."
A passenger boarding a flight to Delhi said, "You would want a 100 percent fit aircraft. Similarly, I would want a genuine pilot. Someone who knows where the breaks are!"