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| Almost 1 in 3 pilots in Pakistan have fake licenses, aviation minister says |
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| james_s:
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on July 17, 2020, 09:09:13 pm ---Yup. Obviously practising without a valid license is concerning and illegal, but apparently mos 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.) --- End quote --- I suspect it's largely infrastructure. Even in a developed nation there tends to be a degree of dysfunction in the government and I dread having to do things that require interacting with government agencies like our department of licensing. There are all kinds of hoops to jump through and things can be thwarted by various technicalities. I can only imagine what it's like in a 3rd world nation with loads of corruption at all levels of government. I'm only speculating but there could be situations where you have to bribe multiple officials to put the proper paperwork through and then they may or may not ever get around to it. Maybe it becomes compelling to take shortcuts and bypass some of the official steps. Who knows? If Pakastani airliners were crashing on a regular basis I'd likely think differently but in most of the 3rd world lax maintenance is a bigger issue than lack of pilot skill. |
| pickle9000:
Not very confidence building. Parents paying for a diploma, pilots doing the same. |
| cdev:
$250k to modify a child's chance of getting into a top college is considered cheap. Here in the US a few of these scandals have come out recently. It seems that the computerization of all records has opened up the floodgates for fraud. At the same time, millions of smart young people cant afford to get an education and are being discouraged against pursuing one because of the cost, and soon the unlikelihood of getting a job even with one. Because of underpricing. --- Quote from: james_s on July 17, 2020, 08:45:02 pm --- --- 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. --- End quote --- 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. --- End quote --- Americans and Australians and British people who know the difference between good grammar and common mistakes native Chinese speakers make should sell their services to less-rich, or bargain hunting Chinese over the net helping them learn conversational English. Or, maybe trade English language conversation services, in exchange for tutoring in other skills? |
| chris_leyson:
EASA recommends suspending Pakistan International Airlines, Juan Brown had a fair bit to say about that and it wasn't all about fake credentials |
| peter-h:
Anyone with exposure to the professional pilot training scene (as I've had, as a CPL/IR, though I don't fly commercially) will know that cheating is endemic among 3rd World candidates. They do their class assignments together in the hotel. I've seen it. If they can, they write the answers on the back of airway charts, etc. The exam system encourages cheating because the QB (question bank) has been public for about 20 years, so everybody learns by memorising the QB. You more or less have to, because most of it is bull**t and irrelevant. Most regard it as a joke. For customers willing to go a bit further, there has been complicity among certain schools over the years. One, in Spain, was selling the JAA ATPL exam passes (14 exams) for €10k... reportedly. That saves a lot of revision. So you may ask: how do airline pilots manage to not crash all the time? Because they sit in the RHS (right hand seat; first officer) for hundreds of hours, with a training captain in the LHS who won't let them screw up. Well, that's what you have in most airlines... The written exams are mostly a barrier to make sure that only really keen people reach the cockpit. They also keep the schools in business, where the candidate dumps 80-100k, for a course (a CPL/IR finished in a piston twin; yes a piston twin is barely relevant to a big twin jet but that's another Q you aren't supposed to ask) which you could do DIY for 30-35k. There is a lot of money in pilot training, both in the 14 exams and in the flight training, and a lot of vested interests everywhere. The real reasons why 3rd World airlines are less safe - even if they have the same brand new Boeing or Airbus planes - are to do with the process and culture. There is massive corruption. Who you know matters. Corners are cut. Loss of face is unacceptable, so mistakes are covered up, instead of learnt from. Maintenance is often poor, which is OK until enough things go wrong together and then it bites you. It is no coincidence that the 737 MAX got crashed only by these airlines; outfits like Ryanair never got anywhere near close enough to stalling the plane to discover its dodgy stall protection software. ELP (English language proficiency) is often marginal, too. Lots of the candidates can barely understand the material. This is a serious enough issue in Europe, actually. Loads of French electronics graduates cannot read English (well, American, say Maxim) data sheets. So French designed products of all kinds use some amazingly obscure components - because the data sheets exist in French. EASA has suspended Pakistan airlines flying into Europe, along with many others. https://www.euroga.org/forums/hangar-talk/11981-are-big-jets-really-easy-to-fly-or-is-the-atpl-theory-just-garbage/post/250881#250881 |
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