KARACHI: A highly influential pilot of Pakistan International Airlines violated air safety rules and flew an aircraft for more than the limit prescribed by the regulator Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) putting lives of hundreds of passengers at risk; however no punitive action has been taken against him, Dawn has learnt.

According to sources, pilot Captain Hamid Gardezi, is a relative of secretary of aviation division Mohammad Ali Gardezi, who owing to his post oversees not only the PIA but also the CAA, the aviation regulator.

The PIA spokesperson, Aamir Memon, despite repeated requests — through telephone as well as email — did not offer any comment on the issue.

The sources said that the CAA put the limit on flight duty time in order to provide rest to the crew so that they could remain alert at work and perform their duty efficiently because fatigued, overworked and overstressed crew could be disastrous for a flight.

The sources said that though the PIA had scheduled the duty of the Karachi-based pilot Mr Gardezi according to rules, he did not follow the PIA schedule and delayed his departure to Lahore till next day owing to which his duty time shot up of the limit prescribed by the law.

The sources said that the PIA had scheduled that Mr Gardezi would fly from Karachi to Lahore on June 1 in the morning, take rest for the remainder of the day and then fly next morning (June 2) from Lahore to Milan and then to Paris.

The sources said that pilot Gardezi did not take the scheduled flight from Karachi to Lahore on June 1 and stayed back in the city. He flew from Karachi to Lahore the next day (June 2) and after reaching the Punjab capital he operated the flight for Milan and then to Paris.

The sources said that if pilot Gardezi had arrived at Lahore a day earlier and had taken rest and operated the flight as scheduled then his duty time would have been within the legally prescribed limit, but since he travelled from Karachi to Lahore and then within a couple of hours he operated the flight, his duty started (for which he is paid allowances, etc) from Karachi and by the time he reached Paris his duty time had violated the prescribed limit.

The sources said that pilot Gardezi’s duty on June 2 started in Karachi at 7.15am and he got off the duty at Paris at 10.48pm and his total duty time coming to 15 hours and 33 minutes. The legally prescribed limit for duty time, according to the CAA Air Navigation Order (ANO) is 13 hours. His duty time violated the prescribed time limit by over 2 hours and 33 minutes. The sources said that this was not the first time that influential pilots had violated rules compromising air safety and exposing lives of passengers to unnecessary and avoidable dangers, but the PIA as well as the regulator CAA, owing to the influence of violators, had not taken any action against them.

Published in Dawn October 4th, 2015

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