PIA to ground 150 pilots for 'cheating' to get licenses.

KARACHI: Pakistan's state-run airline said Thursday it will ground 150 pilots, accusing them of obtaining licenses by having others take exams for them after a probe into last month's crash that killed 97 people in Karachi.

Abdullah Hafeez, a spokesman for Pakistan International Airlines, didn't give additional details about the cheating but said a process to fire the pilots has been initiated.

"We will make it sure that such unqualified pilots never fly aircraft again," he said, adding that safety of passengers is the airline's top priority.

The move by PIA to ground the pilots comes a day after the country's aviation minister, Ghulam Sarwar Khan, said 262 out of 860 Pakistani pilots have 'fake' licenses. He made the revelation while presenting preliminary findings of a probe to parliament into the May 22 Airbus A320 aircraft crash.

The announcement stunned lawmakers present in the National Assembly and shocked family members of passengers who died last month when Flight PK8303 after departing from Lahore went down in a congested residential area in Karachi, killing 97 people, including all the crew members. There were only two...