The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) on Wednesday gave clean-chit to 58 Pakistani pilots who were put on the list pilots having ‘fake licences’.

Two record-holders, Maryam and Erum, are also among the PIA pilots whose names have been removed from the list of ‘fake pilot’.

The CAA has been in action against alleged fake pilots in the wake of May 22 plane crash in Karachi while the opposition ‘smelt a rat’.  

The dubious degrees of pilots drew global attention on June 24 when Federal Minister Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan presented the plane tragedy report to the parliament. 

The minister said almost 40 per cent of the pilots in Pakistan had fake licences and of 860 pilots registered with CAA, 262 had manipulated their credentials.

However, opposition’s lawmaker Sherry Rehman said the government ‘crashed’ the national airline over degrees and certificates of pilots. The national assets are being sold, she added. The Roosevelt Hotel, a profitable asset in PPP rule, is being sold at a nominal price, the former Pakistani ambassador to the US said.