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Almost 1 in 3 pilots in Pakistan have fake licenses, aviation minister says
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cdev:
It just came out in a book written by a close relative that one of the most powerful people in the US got into/through college like that. I have not read it yet, but I want to. I am hearing about stuff like this more and more.


--- Quote from: donotdespisethesnake on June 26, 2020, 06:58:52 am ---
I was thinking the same thing. Apparently two areas of deception are proxies - getting someone else to take the exam, and....



--- End quote ---
floobydust:
The US college admissions scandal had parents paying $15,000-$100,000 for someone to write the SAT in place of their kid, and over $250,000 to get their kid into universities such as Yale, Southern California, UCLA, Stanford etc.
james_s:

--- Quote from: Howardlong on June 26, 2020, 08:27:08 am ---While it is unnacceptable, it’s not clear to me how many are fraudulent exam takers and how many lack recent testing, currency or type ratings. It might be someone who hasn’t got a current medical for example. Any way you look at it it’s unacceptable, but that might explain why these “fake” pilots are still “surprisingly good”.

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That was my thought as well. It's obviously not a good situation but it's possible that the pilots are adequately skilled and experienced, just missing some of the required paperwork. Being licensed doesn't automatically mean that someone is a good pilot, and lacking a license doesn't necessarily mean that they're incompetent. That's not to suggest we shouldn't bother with the license though.
james_s:

--- Quote from: blueskull on July 17, 2020, 07:16:43 am ---
--- Quote from: floobydust on July 16, 2020, 10:25:19 pm ---and over $250,000 to get their kid into universities such as Yale, Southern California, UCLA, Stanford etc.

--- End quote ---

That's so incredibly cheap. I know a rich Chinese guy spending that much to send his wife and kid to Australia just to learn English, and come back to compete in some sort of spoken English contest, just to gain a few points of bonus in middle school or high school admission exam. Talking about how far people are willing to go to gain very slim advantage in this crazy competitive society.

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What is the return on that? Surely there are other far less expensive ways to learn fluent English? $250k may turn out to be worthwhile to get a degree from a prestigious university but I wouldn't call it "cheap", and it's only going to be worthwhile if it's the right degree and the person actually does something worthwhile with it. If I were going to spend $250k on anything I'd want to see a very clear path to a return on my investment.
SiliconWizard:

--- Quote from: james_s on July 16, 2020, 10:47:59 pm ---
--- Quote from: Howardlong on June 26, 2020, 08:27:08 am ---While it is unnacceptable, it’s not clear to me how many are fraudulent exam takers and how many lack recent testing, currency or type ratings. It might be someone who hasn’t got a current medical for example. Any way you look at it it’s unacceptable, but that might explain why these “fake” pilots are still “surprisingly good”.

--- End quote ---

That was my thought as well. It's obviously not a good situation but it's possible that the pilots are adequately skilled and experienced, just missing some of the required paperwork. Being licensed doesn't automatically mean that someone is a good pilot, and lacking a license doesn't necessarily mean that they're incompetent. That's not to suggest we shouldn't bother with the license though.

--- End quote ---

Yup. Obviously practising without a valid license is concerning and illegal, but apparently most of them are still able to operate an airliner properly, at least in general, which already requires a good amount of knowledge and experience. So it's pretty unlikely those unlicensed pilots are just random joes who are not pilots. Most of them are likely to have lost their license for whatever reason, or have been close to, but could never get licensed, but have had proper training. Of course this is no excuse, but I just can't imagine someone who hasn't been trained operating an airliner. You have to know A LOT of stuff including many procedures, radio communication, etc.

Would be interesting to understand why there are so many over there. As this is a pretty poor country, I'm just guessing here, but I would guess maybe it's a factor. Getting licensed may be expensive and a fraction of them may have learned how to circumvent this. Likewise, those who were licensed but lost their license for any reason, they may prefer going the fake route rather than losing a decent job to probably get back to being piss poor.

For the case of getting initially licensed, if there are indeed that many "pilots" that are good enough but not licensed, I guess authorities over there should take measures, not just to prevent fake licenses, but probably also to help pilots getting licensed, especially if money is a primary reason they don't (maybe it's not, so this is just a thought.)
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