Fake pilots.

Byline: Ijaz Mir - Penang, Malaysia

TO become an airline pilot or aircraft maintenance engineer one has to put in years of hard work doing courses, apprenticeships, and basic and type courses. Cutting corners is a practice frowned upon in aviation, but it does happen.

That being said, the multitude of checks and balances and standard operating procedures make civil aviation a most safe business.

In most airlines, it is the chief sector pilots who are entrusted with the job of assigning the duties of pilots and co-pilots. The chief sector pilot knows the abilities of his pilots and co-pilots. He grades them average, above average and below average. Thus he will pair an above average captain with a below average co-pilot and vice versa. The above average co-pilot will take care of a below-average captain.

When a below average pilot and the co-pilot are together, anything can happen. The PIA flight which crashed at Karachi must have suffered similar circumstances.

The pilot and co-pilot were busy in reducing airspeed and lining up the aircraft...