Pakistan's PIA suspended in Europe over fake pilot licence scandal

Yahoo – AFP, Ashraf KHAN, June 30, 2020

Pakistan's PIA has been barred from operating in the European Union after the
 state-run carrier grounded nearly a third of its pilots for holding fake or dubious
licences (AFP Photo/FAROOQ NAEEM)

Regulators have barred Pakistan International Airlines from the European Union for six months after the state-run carrier grounded nearly a third of its pilots for holding fake or dubious licences, officials said Tuesday.

The EUAviation Safety Agency (EASA) told PIA "it is still not sure" if all the remaining pilots are properly qualified, and "they have lost their confidence" in the airline, PIA spokesman Abdullah Khan told AFP.

The suspension is the latest fallout for PIA after Pakistan's aviation minister told parliament last week that a government review had found 262 of the country's 860 active pilots hold fake licenses or cheated on exams.

More than half of them were from PIA, and the airline said it would immediately ground 141 of its 434 pilots.

The EASA said it had suspended PIA and a smaller private Pakistan airline "in view of the recent investigation reported on in the Pakistani Parliament which revealed that a large share of pilot licenses issued in Pakistan are invalid".

PIA is filing an appeal, Khan said.

The airline has only flown limited international flights for months as a result of the coronavirus. A resumption of domestic operations last month was followed by a crash blamed on pilot error that killed 98 people.

PIA had recently resumed bookings for five European capital cities, including Paris, Milan and Barcelona.

Flights to Britain, which is no longer in the EU, have also been suspended, Khan said.

The EASA said it suspended PIA "due to concerns about the capability of competent authorities to ensure that Pakistani air operators are in compliance with applicable international standards at all times".

Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed, a senior figure in the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, said PIA's woes had "put the country's reputation at stake".

"The decision of the European Union is the result of successive follies of incompetent rulers," Ahmed said in a statement.

Reforms 'inevitable'

Prime Minister Imran Khan told parliament he would reform PIA and other government institutions.

"I want to tell my nation: We have no other option, reforms are inevitable," he said Tuesday.

Aviation minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan has promised that a restructuring of PIA would be completed by the end of the year.

On May 22, a PIA flight crashed into houses in Karachi, killing 97 people aboard the plane and a child on the ground.

Investigators blamed the pilots, who were chatting about the coronavirus while they first attempted to land the Airbus A320 without putting its wheels down.

Until the 1970s, Pakistan's largest airline was considered a top regional carrier but its reputation plummeted amid chronic mismanagement, frequent cancellations and financial struggles.

PIA, which is helmed by a serving air force officer, currently has a fleet of 31 planes and a payroll of about 14,500 workers.

The high staff-to-plane ratio has seen long-standing accusations the government and the military use the airline to dish out jobs to cronies and retired military officers.

Even before the coronavirus, PIA was in a financial mess, and the EU suspension will only make things worse.

The airline racked up $340 million in losses last year, compared to $266 million in 2018.

Pilot in Schiphol security scare was instructing a trainee at the time

DutchNews, November 7, 2019

Military police at Schiphol after the scare. Photo: AP Photo/Peter Dejong via HH 

The pilot who sparked a security scare at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport on Wednesday night was giving a trainee instructions when he accidently gave a hijacking alert, airline Air Europa has confirmed. 

The pilot activated the hijacking alert code as priority passengers were boarding, putting D pier into lockdown and launching a high-profile military police operation which generated news coverage around the world. 

No disciplinary measures will be taken against the pilot because there is nothing to blame him for, the airline told broadcaster NOS. 

Meanwhile, one of the 26 passengers on board the plane said they only realised the extent of the scare when they were allowed to leave the aircraft. 

‘My family rang when I was in the plane because they heard it had been hijacked,’ Javier Domingo told the Parool. ‘They had seen these messages about people with knives on board but none of it was true. We were just sitting talking. Some people were watching films on their iPad.’ 

Only on leaving the plane, where they were photographed and searched, did passengers realise what had been going on, he said. 

When the passengers were finally let back on board, the pilot was standing in the doorway. ‘He offered every passenger his apologies on behalf of Air Europa,’ Domingo said. ‘But he did not say that it was he himself who had caused it.’

Related Article:

Schiphol security alert is a false alarm, military police alerted by mistake

Southwest pilots sue Boeing over 737 MAX

Yahoo – AFP, October 8, 2019

Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 MAX aircraft parked on the tarmac after being
grounded (AFP Photo/Mark RALSTON)

Washington (AFP) - Pilots from Texas-based Southwest Airlines said Monday they had filed a lawsuit against Boeing, accusing it of "deliberately misleading" them over the 737 MAX, which has been grounded after two deadly crashes.

Nearly 350 people died in crashes in Indonesia in October 2018 and in Ethiopia in March this year.

"We have to be able to trust Boeing to truthfully disclose the information we need to safely operate our aircraft," captain Jonathan Weaks, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA), said.

"In the case of the 737 MAX, that absolutely did not happen."

The grounding of the 737 MAX since March eliminated more than 30,000 scheduled Southwest flights and caused over $100 million in lost wages for pilots, SWAPA said.

Southwest is the largest operator of the 737 MAX, and the aircraft may not return to passenger service until 2020.

The lawsuit, which was filed in Dallas, Texas, said Boeing had falsely claimed the plane was airworthy.

In both crashes, pilots had difficulty controlling the plane once the MCAS anti-stall handling system was activated, according to preliminary investigations.

Boeing, FAA misjudged pilot response to 737 MAX trouble: government report

Yahoo – AFP, September 26, 2019

The NTSB said Boeing should correct plane design and pilot training to provide
clearer warnings of trouble (AFP Photo/ERIC PIERMONT)

New York (AFP) - Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration misjudged how pilots would respond to multiple alerts and alarms as they encountered trouble when flying the 737 MAX, according to a government report released Thursday.

The FAA needs to adopt a more realistic view of how pilots react under such scenarios as they certify planes, the National Transportation Safety Board said.

The report from the independent government agency comes more than six months after the 737 MAX was grounded globally following two fatal crashes which killed 346 people.

"We saw in these two accidents that the crews did not react in the ways Boeing and the FAA assumed they would," NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt said.

"Those assumptions were used in the design of the airplane and we have found a gap between the assumptions used to certify the MAX and the real-world experiences of these crews, where pilots were faced with multiple alarms and alerts at the same time."

The NTSB recommended the FAA revise plane design and pilot training based on pilot response, and ensure clearer "failure indications" are provided to pilots to improve response.

An FAA spokesman said the agency "will carefully review these and all other recommendations" and that the lessons learned from the crashes "will be a springboard to an even greater level of safety" as it works to certify the MAX to fly again.

Boeing also said it will take the NTSB recommendations into account.

"Safety is a core value for everyone at Boeing," a company spokesman said. "We value the role of the NTSB in promoting aviation safety. We are committed to working with the FAA in reviewing the NTSB recommendations."

Myanmar plane in emergency touchdown as landing gear fails

Yahoo – AFP, May 12, 2019

All 89 people on board the Myanmar Airlines plane, including seven crew
members, were safe (AFP Photo/STR)

A Myanmar pilot saved the day after his aircraft's landing gear failed, safely putting the jet on the runway with no front wheels on Sunday, an official said.

The nail-biting touchdown -- in which no one was hurt -- was the second instance of a malfunctioning flight in less than a week within the country.

Myanmar Airlines flight UB-103 -- an Embraer-190 model -- touched the ground at around 9:00 am in Mandalay (0230 GMT), a city popular among foreign tourists. The plane carried 82 passengers and a crew of seven.

An unverified video circulated on social media showed a graceful landing before the plane's nose dipped gradually to the runway, and the craft slowly ground to a halt.

Ye Htut Aung, deputy director general of Myanmar's Civil Aviation Department, told AFP the pilot tried repeatedly to deploy the front landing gear -- first through its computer system, then manually.

"They tried hard twice by flying around twice and asked to check whether the nose wheel dropped or not," Ye Htut Aung said, calling it a "technical fault".

"So they had to land with the back wheels... The pilot could land it skillfully," he said. "There were no casualties."

Ye Htut Aung said engineers sent by Myanmar National Airlines would examine the aircraft, adding that all jets get a daily flight check.

For its part, Embraer said in a statement that it was "offering its full cooperation to the aviation authorities in order to aid in the investigation".

Passenger Soe Moe told AFP: "Smoke came out a little when we landed... All passengers are okay."

Sunday's incident came just four days after a Biman Bangladesh Airlines plane skidded off a runway while landing at Yangon airport in a storm, injuring 11 passengers.

Myanmar's monsoon season has caused problems for commercial and military flights in the past.

A military plane crashed into the Andaman Sea in 2017, killing all 122 people on board in one of the deadliest aviation accidents in the country's history. Authorities blamed bad weather.

And in 2015, an Air Bagan passenger plane veered off the runway amid bad weather and heavy rain. A passenger and a person on the ground were killed.

Ryanair ordered to pay Dutch pilots up to €480,000 Business

DutchNews, April 23, 2019

Photo: Depositphotos.com

Budget airline Ryanair has been ordered to pay eight Dutch pilots between €380,000 and €480,000 by a court in the Netherlands, as a bitter dispute over contracts ends. 

The court also agreed to dissolve the eight pilot’s contracts from May 1, arguing that there is no likelihood of a ‘purposeful continuation’ and that Ryanair is to blame for the current situation. 

The dispute dates back to last year following Ryanair’s decision to close its base at Eindhoven airport where pilots had twice gone on strike in protest at changes to their pensions and other benefits. 

The district court in Den Bosch then ruled there was no business case to shut the base and said the decision had ‘all the appearance of a sanction following the earlier strikes.’ 

DutchNews.nl has asked Ryanair to comment on the court ruling.

More nations ban Boeing 737 MAX jets after Ethiopia crash

Yahoo – AFP, March 12, 2019

Boeing 737 Max planes are being suspended from airspace in countries including
Britain, France, Germany, Ireland and The Netherlands (AFP Photo/BEN STANSALL)

Paris (AFP) - The EU closed its airspace to Boeing 737 MAX planes on Tuesday, joining similar action by nations across the globe following a second deadly accident in just five months.

Fleets of the best-selling workhorse plane were also grounded by airlines as safety concerns swirled, sending Boeing shares tumbling another seven percent in Tuesday trading and wiping billions more off its market value.

On Sunday, a new Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX 8 went down minutes into a flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, killing all 157 people on board.

In October, a Lion Air jet of the same model crashed in Indonesia, killing 189 people shortly after takeoff from Jakarta.

The widening airspace closures puts pressure on Boeing, the world's biggest planemaker, to prove the MAX planes are safe.

The full extent of the impact on international travel routes was unclear, although there are some 350 MAX 8 planes currently in service around the world with more than 5,000 on order.

Factfile on the Boeing 737 MAX 8 (AFP Photo)

The EU aviation safety agency said it was closing European airspace to all MAX aircraft currently operating.

It noted that the "exact causes" of the Lion Air crash were still being investigated.

"Since that action, another fatal accident occurred," EASA said, referring to Sunday's Ethiopian Airlines disaster.

"At this early stage of the investigation, it cannot be excluded that similar causes may have contributed to both events," the agency said.

'Precautionary measure'

India late Tuesday joined the list of countries to close its airspace to the jet, a day after saying it had imposed additional interim safety requirements for ground engineers and crew for the aircraft.

The Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 went down minutes into a flight 

to Nairobi, killing all 157 people on board (AFP Photo/Michael TEWELDE)

Elsewhere, Turkish Airlines, one of the largest carriers in the world, said it was suspending its 12 MAX aircraft from Wednesday, until "uncertainty" was clarified.

Low-cost airline Norwegian Air Shuttle, South Korea's Eastar Jet and South Africa's Comair also said they would halt flights.

On Twitter, US President Donald Trump weighed in on the situation, writing: "Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly."

"Pilot are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT," he wrote, referring to the prestigious university in Massachusetts.

US carriers have so far appeared to maintain confidence in Boeing, which has said it is certain the planes are safe to fly.

The US federal aviation authority, the FAA, has not grounded the MAX but ordered the manufacturer to make design changes.

US President Donald Trump tweeted that modern planes are too complicated

for pilots (AFP Photo/Jim WATSON)

The move was not enough to reassure the UK Civil Aviation Authority, which said it was banning the planes from UK airspace "as a precautionary measure".

Global air travel hub Singapore, as well as Australia, Malaysia and Oman were among the other countries to ban all MAX planes from their airspace.

China, a hugely important market for Boeing, had already ordered domestic airlines to suspend operations of the plane on Monday, as did Indonesia.

Argentina's flag carrier also grounded five MAX 8 aircraft on Tuesday, as did airlines in countries including Brazil and Mexico.

'Significant industry impact'

Boeing has described the MAX series as its fastest-selling family of planes, with more than 5,000 orders placed to date from about 100 customers.

Debris of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane strewn over a crash site outside Addis 

Ababa (AFP Photo/Michael TEWELDE)

But not since the 1970s -- when the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 suffered successive fatal incidents -- has a new model been involved in two deadly accidents in such a short period.

"I think the impact for the industry is significant," said Gerry Soejatman, a Jakarta-based aviation analyst.

"We have a new type of aircraft -- that type of aircraft has only been in service for two years -- and... we have two accidents with seemingly similar circumstances."

The plane involved in Sunday's crash was less than four months old, with Ethiopian Airlines saying it was delivered on November 15.

It went down near the village of Tulu Fara, some 40 miles (60 kilometres) east of Addis Ababa.

Ethiopian Airlines said the pilot was given clearance to turn around after indicating problems shortly before the plane disappeared from radar.

The doomed Boeing 737 MAX airliner was carrying passengers and crew from 

35 countries (AFP Photo)

Its chief executive Tewolde GebreMariam said the plane had flown in from Johannesburg on Sunday, spent three hours in Addis and was "dispatched with no remark", meaning no problems were flagged.

Investigators have recovered the black box flight recorders, which could potentially provide information about what happened, depending on their condition.

The crash cast a pall over a gathering of the UN Environment Programme in Nairobi -- at least 22 staff from several UN agencies were on board the doomed flight.

Kenya had the highest death toll among the nationalities on the flight with 32, according to Ethiopian Airlines.

There were also passengers from Canada, Ethiopia, Italy, the United States, Britain and France.

#UPDATE The ban on the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft became worldwide after US President Donald Trump joined Canada and other countries in grounding the aircraft amid intense pressure about the safety concerns https://t.co/okBppoGk6W

— AFP news agency (@AFP) 13 maart 2019

Black box data recovered from an Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed last week shows "clear similarities" with a recent crash in Indonesia of the same type of aircraft, Ethiopia's transport minister said https://t.co/k38qc9WcB6 by @ChrisJStein pic.twitter.com/1Q7SuaGpA6

— AFP news agency (@AFP) 17 maart 2019

Women pilots fly against cockpit prejudices

Yahoo – AFP, Sonia WOLF, 19 July 2018

EasyJet wants 20 percent of its new cadet pilots to be women by 2020

When a stricken Southwest Airlines jet was expertly landed after an emergency descent in April, saving 148 lives, it was a surprise to some that a woman was at the controls.

Role models remain few and far between for women wanting to enter the cockpit, rather than serve the onboard drinks, despite a huge shortage of pilots worldwide.

"So often we're shown men as pilots, and women as cabin crew. This could be sending a message to young girls that if they want to work in aviation, it can't be as a pilot," according to the British Airline Pilots' Association.

But things are finally starting to change and a few airlines are trying to redress the gender imbalance.

Europe's biggest budget carrier easyJet, under an initiative named after pioneer aviator Amy Johnson, wants 20 percent of its new cadet pilots to be women by 2020.

Today, just three percent of professional pilots worldwide are women, according to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

The UN agency estimates that passenger numbers will double over the next 20 years, and that airlines will need to recruit 620,000 pilots to keep up with the demand.

Tammie Jo Shults is one of those few women.

Shults, one of the first female fighter pilots for the US Navy, performed heroics in safely bringing down her Southwest Boeing 737 after an engine blowout.

One passenger died in the incident.

'Top Gun' machismo

According to retired captain Kathy McCullough, "having someone in the spotlight who's a lady who does a great job just points out that it can happen and does happen and isn't really that much of a surprise".

Just over 5 percent of the global total of pilots are women

Nevertheless, McCullough said after Shults hit the headlines that her generation of female pilots were still waiting to pass the baton to another.

"Until we reach a tipping point, which is supposedly 20 percent, I don't think we'll see much in the way of a change," she told National Public Radio.

The "Top Gun" machismo attached to aviation runs deep.

Neither does commercial flying lend itself to a work-family balance, giving organisations such as the ICAO and the International Society of Women Airline Pilots an uphill challenge to entice more women into the profession.

The society says just over 7,400 pilots flying for commercial airlines are female, or 5.2 percent of the global total.

United ranks best with 7.4 percent. Ironically Southwest, Shults's employer, has just 3.6 percent.

It is not just employment practices that the International Society of Women Airline Pilots has to confront but passenger prejudices as well, according to former chairwoman Liz Jennings Clark.

Mistaken for cabin crew

A captain with Dutch low-cost carrier Transavia, 55-year-old Clark likes when possible to come out of the cockpit and say goodbye to her passengers at the end of a flight.

But she said that many still hand their litter to her, mistaking her for cabin crew.

Girls who want to grow up as pilots still lack role models, agreed Sophie Coppin, diversity officer at the French Civil Aviation University in Toulouse.

A few airlines are trying to redress the gender imbalance as more women become pilots

Among both students and their parents, "there is a conscious or unconscious suppression" of the idea of women as aviators, she said.

About 15 percent of the student pilots at the French university are women. Double that figure are training as air traffic controllers, another sector suffering an acute shortage of entrants.

There has, at least, been some progress since 1979 when Shults, 56, was at high school and attended a careers lecture on aviation by a retired colonel.

The Southwest pilot said she was the only girl in the class, and he started by asking her if she was lost.

"I mustered up the courage to assure him I was not and that I was interested in flying," she wrote in a book about female military aviators.

"He allowed me to stay, but assured me there were no professional women pilots."

EasyJet wants 20 percent of its new cadet pilots to be women by 2020

Just over 5 percent of the global total of pilots are women

A few airlines are trying to redress the gender imbalance as more women become pilots.