Pilot’s exam, investigated

Press, 16 May 1985, Page 3

Pilot’s exam, investigated

The Christchurch police are investigating an alleged irregularity in the sitting of a written examination for a commercial pilot’s licence. The police inquiry, carried out by Detective Sergeant David Porteous, began last year after the Civil Aviation Division told the police that it was suspicious about some examination papers sat in Timaru about a year ago.

The division asked the police to investigate the possibility that the tests might have been sat by someone impersonating a candidate.

The police inquiry had found a potential loophole in the way the tests were run, said a spokesman for the Christchurch fraud squad. In the case investigated, checks on the identity of candidates sitting the examination papers might have failed.

The controller of personnel licensing for the Civil Aviation Division in Wellington, Mr Brian StanleyHunt, said yesterday that the division was considering

tightening the conduct of the examinations. The Timaru examination papers in question were for the commercial flying of helicopters. The person who applied to sit the papers was a Canterbury man who already had a private pilot’s licence, but who wished to gain a commercial helicopter licence. He has been advised by the police not to sit the practical tests for the commercial licence while the investigation is under way. Police inquiries into the alleged impersonation of the candidate are continuing.

Mr Stanley-Hunt said that candidates applied to Civil Aviation for an admission slip to the examinations, which were held regularly in main centres.

Candidates were expected to hand in the slip when they arrived to sit the examinations, which lasted three days. The candidates did not have to sit the examinations in their home town, and examination supervisors

had been told to ask candidates from out of the area for extra identification.

Mr Stanley-Hunt said that it was possible that this was not always done. “We cannot really know for sure how widespread the problem is. We hope that it is isolated,” he said. The examinations were obviously conducted to maintain flight and safety standards. Civil Aviation’s options in tightening examination procedures would include requiring candidates to carry extra identification and asking them to sign their examination admission slip in front of the supervisor. Civil Aviation might also have to consider requiring candidates to sit the examination in their own area, said Mr StanleyHunt.