Here are some recent instances of narrow misses on flights that were commandeered by foreign pilots:

In the first week of February this year, the German commander of an Air Deccan flight mistook a flyover next to the Hussain Sagar lake in Hyderabad for the runway. An alert air traffic controller saved the day.

On February 18, just before take-off from Delhi, a Jet Airways flight piloted by a Nigerian entered a taxiway meant for planes that exit the runway after landing

On March 11, the nose-wheel of an ATR plane of Air Deccan carrying 40 passengers broke after a rough landing at Bangalore. The pilot was a Zambian.

In September 2005, the Bolivian pilot of a Calcutta-Mumbai Air Sahara flight with 119 passengers misjudged the length of the runway, overshot it

On October 10, 2005, a Romanian pilot of Air India Express on the Dubai-Kochi sector landed, ignoring an air traffic controller's warning

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'Wanted pilots. Situation desperate.' This is the SOS being flashed by eight private carriers and the government-run airline, Indian. We knew of an enticing drop in air fares owing to a sudden boom in the civil aviation sector that meant more flights and intense competition. But it has also brought with it a problem that warrants urgent redressal: an acute shortage of pilots. At the latest count, 2,000 more pilots need to be inducted. And going by the present rate of expansion, the shortage is expected to be 4,500 by 2010. This, when India is currently capable of training only 30 new pilots a year.

So, how are the carriers managing with just 1,200 pilots? Most have opted for foreign hands. Almost one-fourth of the pilots flying private carriers are foreigners. Air Deccan has 125 foreigners manning the cockpits. Jet Airways has an equal number. The other private airlines—Sahara, Kingfisher, GoAir, Paramount, Jagson and Spice Jet—have a dozen or more expatriate pilots each.

Most of the foreign pilots are from East European, Latin American and Central Asian countries. They find working in India lucrative because of the attractive pay, ranging between $8000 to $14,000 a month. However, their technical skills as also their comprehension of the English language have been found wanting. As a result, there have been several 'near-misses' in the recent past—many caused by a communication gap between the cockpit and the Air Traffic Control.

In the face of severe pilot shortage, the government has allowed both the commander and the co-pilot to be foreigners. Earlier, one member of the crew had to be an Indian to tide over the language problem. But with several near-misses, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) recently directed that there has to be at least one Indian in the cockpit if both the pilots are foreigners. For better monitoring, the DGCA has also started randomly checking digital flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders of aircraft.

As a short-term measure to tide over the shortage, the government has increased the retirement age of pilots from 60 to 65 years, subject to rigorous fitness tests. And to bring about some stability in an industry where poaching has become the order of the day, the government has introduced a clause that disallows pilots to quit jobs without giving six months' notice to his employer. Civil aviation secretary Ajay Prasad told Outlook that the situation has virtually become chaotic. "There have been instances where flights had to be cancelled because pilots didn't show up as they had been hired by a rival airline overnight. We gave the option to the airlines to devise their own rules and standards.
 
   
   
They failed, so the government had to step in and introduce this clause. The earlier system of bonds wasn't working as the airline hiring a pilot was prepared to pay the bond money," he said.

Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal says his airline has decided to set up its own flying academy. "We want all our flights to be flown by Indian pilots. We will train them ourselves," he notes. Government-owned domestic carriers Indian and Alliance Air have so far resisted hiring foreign pilots. The latter, a subsidiary of Indian, is on the verge of closure, managing to hold on to only two pilots. Pawan Hans, another government-owned enterprise that operates helicopters, is facing a similar problem.
 
 
  
 Flights have even got cancelled as pilots failed to show up because a rival airline hired them overnight. 
  
 
  In fact, many of its engineering and technical staff too have quit.
 
(part of the report missing --- has to be about AIR INDIA).
 
and also for its low-cost Air India Express, but it still needs more commanders and co-pilots.

How does the government plan to tackle the problem? Prasad says his ministry has requested the Indian Air Force (IAF) to recruit more pilots than it requires so as to create a pool from which they can be sent to government-run airlines on deputation for a few years. This step has the approval of the IAF which is also facing a pilot shortage. It has been losing its men to private carriers. By allowing pilots the option of going on deputation to Indian and Air India, which pays higher salaries than the force, the government plans to hold on to them in the IAF.

The civil aviation ministry is also hiring retired IAF pilots for commercial operations and for its aviation school. Retired Air Vice Marshal S.P. Malan was recently put in charge of the country's only flying school, the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Academy in Rae Bareli. It is also hiring retired IAF pilots as instructors. Prasad says the aim is to increase the capacity of the academy so that more pilots can be trained. "At present, only 30 pilots come out of the academy every year. By the end of this year, we hope to train 45 pilots and take it up to 100 by next year," he adds.

Another training academy is being set up at Gondia in Maharashtra's Vidarbha region. The Planning Commission has already cleared Rs 40 crore for it. The academy is expected to start functioning from next year, initially training 50 pilots a year.

The government is also encouraging the revival of some of the private flying clubs, whose operations have become limited over the years due to lack of resources and infrastructure. While many of them have shut down, about half-a-dozen functional ones have been identified for revival in cooperation with the Aero Club of India. A sum of Rs 15 crore has been earmarked for the purpose.

Everyone in the aviation business agrees that the pilot shortage problem needs to tackled before the situation spins out of control. Clearly, ad hoc measures will not do. Also, some ground rules have to be laid down before an airline hires a foreign pilot. So far the industry has been lucky that there have been no accidents. But how long can it play with the lives of passengers?
 

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