RAWALPINDI: A pilot, who was wanted by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in connection with dubious licence cases, was detained on Tuesday by the immigration staff at the Islamabad International Airport while he was trying to leave for the United Kingdom.

Sources said the detained pilot would be shifted to offices of the FIA’s corporate crime circle.

The sources said he was among the 29 pilots identified in an FIR registered with the FIA on a complaint of the Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) deputy director general (regulatory) regarding issuance of commercial pilot licence and airline transport pilot licence by the CAA on the basis of ‘fake pilot licence exams’.

As many as 40 pilots, eight government officials/officers of the CAA’s licence branch and one private person had been nominated in three separate cases registered with the FIA’s corporate crime circle on Friday.

A commercial pilot licence had been issued to the detained pilot on Dec 1, 2015. He was accused of appearing in the pilots’ exams after office hours.

The issue of dubious pilot licences came to light when Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan revealed on the floor of the National Assembly that 262 pilots had committed irregularities during the exams.

Later, the Aviation Division referred the cases against five CAA officials to the FIA to hold an inquiry into malpractices in issuance of flight crew licences.

After the FIA completed the probe, a pilot and five CAA officials allegedly involved in the dubious pilot licence scam had been arrested.

The FIA is making efforts to detain the remaining accused identified in the three FIRs, according to the sources.

Published in Dawn, February 3rd, 2021