

Anupam Verma is one of dozens of pilots in India who obtained certificates showing inflated flying hours and ground training, according to court documents and interviews with pilots, regulators and industry analysts. The son of a poor farmer, Verma was issued a certificate showing he had flown 360 hrs when in reality had only flown 35 minutes. Herman had been given a 2.8 million-rupee ($44,000) subsidy by the Indian government to learn to fly a commercial jet.

“What if I was flying and had an emergency? I wouldn’t even know how or where to land,” Verma, 25, said in an interview. “We’d kill not only the passengers, but we might crash in a village and kill even more people.”

The spotlight on aviation safety has gone from aircraft reliability to pilot reliability in the past few years after a series of fatal accidents that were thought to be either deliberate acts of destruction, or the result of inadequate training.

Concern about the quality of India’s pilots has been building over the past decade as a proliferation of Low Cost Carriers (LCC) created demand for hundreds of new pilots. In 2011, just a few days after Parminder Kaur Gulati, a suspended pilot of Indigo airline, was arrested on charges of faking her marksheet to get a pilot licence, another arrest on the same grounds has been made. This time around, Captain J K Verma, a pilot of the national carrier Air India has been arrested.

"We have arrested Verma. Investigations are on. We have been provided more names by the Directorate General Civil Aviation (DGCA). The scanner is on two more pilots - Meenakshi Sehgal of Indigo and Swaran Singh Talwar of MDLR," a senior police official said.

It all began after Parminder Kaur Gulati was grounded two months ago for violating landing norms. The matter was then reported to the aviation watchdog, the DGCA. The government reviewed the licenses of all 4,000-plus airline pilots in the country, as police investigated at least 18 people suspected of using forged documents to win promotions or certification. The findings of the review were not made public.

“The fudging of log books is rampant both in airlines and in flying clubs,” said Mohan Ranganathan, a former commercial pilot and aviation safety consultant based in Chennai. He said the 2011 audit found violations in most flying clubs in the country. “Hours were logged with aircraft not even in airworthy condition. One aircraft had no engines but several hundred hours were logged.”

Over logging has been common practice in India since the 1960s, according to a retired commander who has flown in India for over 40 years and asked not to be named because the information was confidential. With the increase in budget airlines the typical number of faked hours rose from about 20 hours to a peak of as much as 150, he said.

He said airlines can soon tell if a pilot has faked certificates because they don’t have basic skills, but the carrier can’t fire them because they have DGCA licenses. To bring them up to scratch, airlines have to do expensive corrective training, he said.

Of India’s seven major airlines, Tata SIA Airlines Ltd.’s Vistara said it is aware of over logging, but tests all new pilots and provides its own training. SpiceJet Ltd. said it only hires from prestigious air schools and tests and trains all new pilots. IndiGo, Air India Ltd., Jet Airways India Ltd. and AirAsia India Ltd. didn’t respond to e-mails and phone calls about the issue. Go Airlines India Pvt. Ltd. declined to comment.

The rise of LCCs not only increased demand for pilots, it also sparked a price war that wiped out the industry’s profit. India’s carriers have lost $10 billion in the past seven years as they offered base fares as low as 1 rupee (2 cents). That works out as a loss of about $22 for each passenger that stepped on board during the period.

Yet, for people like Verma, the award of a government grant to learn to fly is a chance to escape poverty. His father supports his family of seven by selling vegetables grown on a plot of land half the size of a football field. Most of his siblings only work part-time to supplement the income.

Even with the minimum 200 hours mandated by the Indian government, pilots would be unlikely to have experienced all of the weather and other conditions they’re likely to meet flying a commercial jet. I flew Air Ambulance flights on small Turboprops and small Cessna Citation jets before going my first airline with 850 hrs. Even then I flew a Dornier 328 Turboprop for a couple of years before getting my big break onto Boeings.

It is not only a question of flying hours but the quality of your training. The European Schools tend to produce the best pilots with FTE Jerez and Oxford Air Training School being amongst the best. These schools train both self-sponsored students and airline cadets. They have very experienced instructors and use modern technology to enhance students learning. I have flown with pilots that trained at both these schools and must say they have the edge.





Fabrizio Poli (on the left) is an Aviation Analyst & Managing Partner of Boutique Aviation Company Tyrus Wings. He is also an accomplished Airline Transport Pilot having flown both private Jets and for the airlines. Fabrizio is also a bestselling author and inspirational speaker. You can tune in weekly to Fabrizio's business Podcast Living Outside the Cube.

Fabrizio can be reached on:

Email: fabrizio.poli@tyruswings.com

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