Barely a week after the Directorate General of Civil Aviation decided to suspend operations of a high-profile pilot-training academy after its inquiry found fraud and forgery in the manner in which flight-test certificates were being issued to aspiring pilots, the Ministry of Civil Aviation stepped in and reversed the decision. This despite the police saying that the scandal has “grave security and criminal implications.”

The probe began in October last year when the Pune police moved in against the five-year-old Carver Aviation Academy in Baramati, the constituency of Agriculture Minister and NCP chief Sharad Pawar. Police action came after Carver CEO Marc Carvalho — a former Air India purser — filed a complaint against his Chief Flying Instructor Captain A Taxali of financial irregularities. Taxali and three other senior employees were arrested and released on bail.

But that complaint was just scratching the surface.

For, a high-level DGCA inquiry has indicted the CEO holding him “responsible” for a sweeping range of irregularities including issuing fraudulent flight certificates to 25 pilots, forging signatures and approvals.

These pilots, who completed their training in flight schools in USA and Canada, enrolled at Carver for their “conversion tests,” needed for getting the DGCA licence to fly in India. Each of them paid Rs 3.2 lakh as fees. Now they, too, have been named as “accused” and have got show-cause notices by the DGCA which has called for their licences to be cancelled.

The DGCA’s 23-page investigation report, obtained by The Sunday Express, and submitted to the Ministry on January 4 was categorical in its indictment: It called for prompt cancellation of all approvals to the academy as well as of all licences issued to pilots, even the one issued to the Chief Flying Instructor.

... contd.