KARACHI: The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has so far taken no serious action against a senior pilot of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) who had allegedly invited a passenger to the cockpit during an international flight in May, it is learnt here reliably.

According to highly placed sources, CAA has let off the highly influential pilot, Capt Shehzad Aziz, who had violated an air safety rule and risked the lives of hundreds of passengers by just issuing a “letter of warning”.

The aviation regulator has issued directives for PIA to strengthen, improve and strictly implement its in-house codes, trainings, laws governing the crew.

The sources said that pilot Aziz had invited a Chinese female passenger in the cockpit during the Tokyo-Beijing flight (PK-853) on May 8 and directed the co-pilot to go out of it. They said the woman remained inside the cockpit for a considerable period of time.

One of the passengers, who had witnessed the woman entering the cockpit, had videotaped the entire episode by his cell phone and tried to get the versions of the woman and crew members about it. But, after failing to get their versions, he had uploaded the video on social media. The video had gone viral instantly.

Responding to media queries on the video, a PIA representative had said that pilot Aziz was being grounded and an inquiry would be conducted.

The sources said that following a series of hijacking incidents during the fourth quarter of the previous century entry of unauthorised people in the cockpit, particularly during the flight, had been banned.

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2017