150 Pakistan pilots suspended in licence probe

The move comes after the government released a report into the May 22 crash in Karachi.

File photo of a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) passenger plane.

Pakistan International Airlines said on Thursday it had grounded almost a third of its pilots for holding fake or dubious licences, a month after one of its planes crashed into houses killing 98 people .

The move comes after the government released a report into the May 22 crash in Karachi. Investigators largely blamed the two pilots, who ignored flight protocols and had been discussing the coronavirus outbreak when they first attempted to land the Airbus A320. PIA spokesman Abdullah Hafeez Khan said that a government probe last year had found about 150 of its 434 pilots were carrying “either bogus or suspicious licences”.