Almost a third of Pakistan’s civilian pilots have fake licences, the country’s aviation minister said on Wednesday.
Ghulam Sarwar Khan told Pakistan's National Assembly that 262 pilots in the country "did not take the exam themselves" and had paid someone else to sit it on their behalf. "They don't have flying experience," he said.
He was speaking a few hours after the results of the investigation were announced as part of a preliminary report into a plane crash that killed 97 people in the southern city of Karachi on May 22. The PIA plane crashed after taking off from Lahore, killing all but two of the passengers and crew on board.
According to the report, the pilots were chatting about the coronavirus and repeatedly ignored warnings from air traffic controllers before the plane went down in a residential area near the airport.
"The pilots were discussing corona throughout the flight. They were not focused.
They talked about the coronavirus and how their families were affected," Khan said, adding that the pilots were "overconfident."
He said the pilots of the flight were told three times by air traffic controllers that the plane was too high and they should not attempt to land, "but the captain did not pay any heed to these instructions."
The pilots proceeded with trying to land -- without lowering the landing gear.
Pakistan International Airlines said Thursday it had grounded almost a third of its pilots for holding fake or dubious licences.
PIA spokesman Abdullah Hafeez Khan told AFP that a government probe last year had found about 150 of its 434 pilots were carrying "either bogus or suspicious licences".
"We have decided to ground those 150 pilots with bogus licences with immediate effect," he said. Both the pilots in the Karachi crash were found to have had authentic credentials.
"Their names are not included in the list of 150," Khan said.
Details of the government probe were made public Wednesday when Pakistan's aviation minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan told parliament the review found more than 260 of the country's 860 active pilots had fake licenses or had cheated on exams.
State-owned PIA said it has requested additional details from the Civil Aviation Authority so "further action may be taken against those who have become severe potential hazards".
PIA, Pakistan's flag carrier, currently has a fleet of 31 planes and employs around 14,500 staff.
Last month's crash saw the plane come down in a crowded residential area near Karachi airport, killing 97 people on board and a child on the ground.
The preliminary report outlined the flight's chaotic final minutes and a bizarre series of errors compounded by communication failures with air traffic control.
Pakistan has a chequered military and civilian aviation safety record, with frequent plane and helicopter crashes over the years.
In 2016, a PIA plane burst into flames after one of its two turboprop engines failed while flying from the remote north to Islamabad, killing more than 40 people.
The deadliest air disaster in Pakistan was in 2010 when an Airbus A321 operated by private airline Airblue crashed into the hills of Islamabad as it came in to land, killing all 152 people on board.
An official report blamed that accident on a confused captain and a hostile cockpit atmosphere.
PIA, one of the region's leading airlines until the 1970s, now suffers from a sinking reputation due to frequent cancellations, delays and financial troubles.