KARACHI: A foreign safety assessment of a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) aircraft found that not only was the airbus in bad shape but the crew also lacked technical training and was using outdated maps, it was learned on Saturday.

The faults were found during the Safety Assessment of Foreign Aircraft (Safa) inspections in Dubai.

According to inspection report, if PIA does not improve its standards immediately its foreign operations can be disrupted.

Sources said that some faults, including damaged windshields, sliding windows and loosely-tied cargo, could also prove fatal.

The PIA management, they said, lacked good governance and the Civil Aviation Authority — which is responsible for ensuring that flights are operated through well-maintained aircraft and have fully trained crew — also lacked strict monitoring.

The General Civil Aviation Authority of the United Arab Emirates carried out the Safa inspection of PIA’s flight PK-284 and found various faults in the Airbus A-320 aircraft (registered as AP-BLW), which was operated on Sept 5 in Dubai.

The inspection report handed over to PIA official Farrukh Waseem said that “the windows and both primary windshields were delaminated”.

It claimed that the “cargo forward net was not secured and baggage was scattered, airway manuals and ALT charts were outdated and the crew was unaware of some technical information”. The baby bassinet was incorrectly stowed in the last seat row and the flashlight was not working in the daylight flight.

The sources claimed that PIA’s chief of flight operations Uzair Khan issued a letter on the subject of “Safa inspections” just to save his skin instead of taking any action against the crew and staffers responsible for the faults, or making efforts to improve their training standard.

The letter read: “It is informed that the PIA Safa inspections index has risen to critical level and further finding may cause disruption of operation to foreign destinations. In the light of above it is once again reiterated that strict adherence to standard procedures and company policies help avoid findings during inspections.” It advised all pilots to pay close attention to personal and onboard documents validity on all flights and adhere to the ‘No Smoking’ policy at all times.

Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2017