Who is the Cause of the ban on Pakistani airlines to fly on European Routes?

My dear Mr. Khaqan Murtaza,

DG CAA Pakistan JIAP Karachi.

Assalaamo o Aikum,

Sub: Employment in CAA Flight Standards Directorate through Nepotism and Favouritism and working in conflict of interest & have been doing Tax Evasion, who is the Cause of ban on Pakistani airlines to fly on European Routes.

I hope my letter finds you in the best of health and good spirits. With these compliments, I like to put forward my concern about the facts that how our aviation industry is being crumbled due to corruption and conflict of personal interest in different CAA directorates, where the Flight Standards Directorate holds the top slot, who has the basic responsibility to ensure safety oversight and implementation of ICAO flight standards in the airlines. When appointment in-flight standards are done illegally through nepotism and favoritism with complete disregard to professional abilities and selection criteria then how can CAA ensure compliance of international flight standards, which is the cause of the ban on Pakistani airline operation on international routes.

The induction of inexperienced flight inspectors through nepotism and favoritism in violation of required standards and criterion is a root cause of the degradation of our aviation industry. When there are weak professionals then there is a requirement of more people to do the same amount of work, which leads to spending more from the national exchequer and then there is a tug of war in the directorate between the true experts and the useless staff in the same directorate on equal salaries. In fact, weak professionals do more damage to the system through compromise on the standards to hide their professional weaknesses, which leads to degraded flight standards and compromise on flight safety. As a matter of fact, that is the actual cause of the higher air accident rate in Pakistan, thus the illegal appointment of CAA inspectors by the CAA HR department in violation of prescribed selection procedures is challengeable in the superior Courts of Pakistan.

After series of air crashes in Pakistan, it has been established that it happened due to poor safety oversight by CAA Flight Standards. Pakistan’s airline industry has been graded as the worst and most unsafe due to its history of crashes attributed to human failures in the past few years. All air crashes were avoidable and all accident investigations proved that accidents occurred due to poor safety oversight and bad monitoring by CAA Pakistan, where compromise in the selection of Flight Inspectors/Director Flight Standards (DFS) is undoubtedly a compromise on flight safety, which may lead to loss of further precious lives and valuable aircraft.

After your appointment as DG on merits, your office is the appropriate level to address the regulatory and flight safety concerns arising out of illegal appointments in Flight Standards. In this regards, I like to explain the credentials of flight inspectors with reference to ICAO DOC.9734, which explains, how a flight Inspector and inspection by him is defined, which states: A Flight Inspector is a qualified person authorized by the State to carry out safety oversight activities of airlines on behalf of civil aviation and Inspection means; examination of specific aviation activities, approval or authorization performed by civil aviation inspectors to confirm compliance with requirements for the license, approval or authorization already issued or being issued by the State”. Nowhere in any ICAO Documents, it is advised that the Flight Inspectors involve themselves in the training of the pilots other than checking airline/company training manuals for the proper training activities. It is the sole responsibility of airlines to induct duly qualified and capable flight crew to carry out safe and efficient airline flight operations.

CAA Pakistan Flight Inspectors are paid approximately RS.700 000 (7 lacs) per month, which is a huge amount and almost double the average salaries of pilots on all Pakistani airlines. Moreover, a few flight inspectors who were inducted in CAA through illegal means of selection are not up to the required standards and they were rejected from the airline industry due to their below standards performance, which includes DFS, Capt. Riffatullah, Capt. Nadeem Hanif and Capt. Hameed Khan and all there are involved serious cases of violation of CAA Rules in taking check-in complete disregard to CAA Rules and have been acting in conflict interest, which may not be ignored in the interest of aviation safety and to recover the already lost repute of Pakistan’s aviation.

I may express here the example of the Turkish Aviation Authority, where there are only three Flight Inspectors one each from Airlines, helicopters, and military aircraft against a fleet of 1300 aircraft registered in Turkey, but in Pakistan, we have very few aircraft, but CAA has dozen of flight inspector, who do very little for the monitoring of aviation safety standards of airlines and mostly busy in the hectic duty of manipulating their foreign tours by misinterpreting CAA rules to show that no pilot will be able to fly, if not checked by this present CAA inspector got rejected from other airlines and managed their induction in CAA through unfair means for which CAA HR deserves a penal action. They remain on an undesired foreign tour to further reinforce their huge salaries and for doing nothing for the rescue of the already duffed Pakistani aviation Industry.

To support my argument I would like to quote International Civil Aviation Organization ICAO DOC 9734 3.4.1.4 also which states: that a civil aviation inspector should be fully qualified, with specific regulatory skills, and shall demonstrate a minimum appropriate level of technical knowledge and shall not work in conflict of interest. The qualifications of a civil aviation inspector should ideally match the qualifications of those who are being tested in the simulator or in the aircraft, thus examiners involved in conducting examinations and tests should themselves possess qualifications and experience similar to or above those applicants being tested or examined.

CAA Document 624 clearly says that an inspector must hold undoubted credentials that he should be free of conflict of interest with his job function and shall not be involved in activities of personal gains, but it is the other way around in CAA Flight Standard Directorate.

All the Flight inspectors are highly paid individuals, but they care very little for their office duty of monitoring safety standards and implementation of CAA Rules in airlines, regularly occupied in manipulating their foreign trips for drawing heavy TA/DA from airlines @ USD 250 per day on normal days and USDs 350 per day on weekends in cash from the airlines and that too undeclared in their tax returns, which amounts to tax evasion. Therefore it is legally binding on CAA to send the case of tax evasion to Federal Investigation Agency for investigation against such inspectors and the airlines, who have been paying in foreign exchange without any declaration to authorities.

According to reliable information, there are few Inspectors, who did not fulfill qualification criteria and got appointed through nepotism and in violation of CAA selection procedure, which is the reason that Flight Standard Directorate failed to carry out safety over the sight of airlines and inspectors remained involved in activities of personal gains of making TA/DA from foreign trips in violation of standards explained in CAA Doc 624, which amounts to ransom from the airlines through misuse of official powers and by manipulating CAA Rules for their personal monetary gains.

All Flight Inspector are working in violation of the Designate Check Pilot (DCP) Manual, which clearly says that CAA Inspector is not required for every Simulator and Line check of the Airlines pilots when there are DCPs in the airlines, who are designated by CAA to carry out testing of their company pilots. Therefore every manipulation by CAA flight Inspectors to arrange their trip abroad at the cost of airlines is illegal and in conflict of interest, against the ethics as expressed in CAA Doc 624.

With best wishes and humble regards,

Captain

Muhammad Nawaz Asim L.L.M

Wing Cdr. Retired.

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