Pakistan International Airlines has fired 50 staffers including 3 pilots for holding fake high school degrees, an airline official said Monday, in the latest embarrassing mishap to hit the troubled airline. PIA, which was considered a global leader in commercial aviation until the 1970s, has been plagued by myriad controversies in recent years and saddled by billions of dollars in debt. An airline spokesman said at least 6 additional pilots had been fired recently on the same grounds. The airline has cancelled the pilots' licenses, the spokesman added. He did not specify what the other PIA staff who were sacked did for the airline. PIA was widely mocked in 2016 for sacrificing a goat next to a turboprop ATR plane to ward off bad luck, weeks after one of its planes crashed killing 47 people. <br/>
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A Jodhpur-bound SpiceJet flight made an emergency landing at the Ahmedabad airport Monday due to a cabin pressurisation problem. The pilot of the flight SEJ2976, operating on Ahmedabad-Jodhpur route, reported cabin pressurisation issue, shortly after its take off from the city airport Monday afternoon, said a Ahmedabad airport. The flight, carrying 83 persons including 4 crew members, departed from Ahmedabad at 3.09 pm for Jodhpur. “At 3.15 pm, when the aircraft was 15,000 feet above the ground, the pilot informed the Ahmedabad ATC that the aircraft had cabin pressurisation failure,” the airport said. SG2976 is a Bombardier Q400 aircraft. According to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, SpiceJet’s Bombardier Q400 aircraft have faced a total of 1,993 “technical defects or snags” in 2017. <br/>
Police in Samoa are investigating the circumstances of the death of a child on board a flight from Auckland this week. Emergency staff were called to Samoa Faleolo International Wednesday after receiving information from a Samoa Airways aircraft that there was a medical situation mid-flight. "A medical situation involving a passenger occurred whilst flight OL732 was en-route from Auckland to Apia,'' the airline said. "In response, cabin crew assisted and treated the passenger with oxygen.'' Despite the crew's efforts to revive the passenger, his condition deteriorated. "Unfortunately, there was no medical personnel on board the flight,'' the airline said. "The passenger - who, according to family, had a medical history which had not been disclosed to the airline prior to the flight - sadly passed away.'' <br/>
A Nigerian airline says it could pull its business out of the UK after one of its pilots was arrested on suspicion of being a stowaway and threatened with deportation. Max Air condemned the move by border staff at Bournemouth International, stating that it is an example of the Home Office’s “hostile environment policy”. The company says it is now losing GBP180,000 a day, because it cannot find another pilot to fly the plane after captain Adam Ibrahim returned home voluntarily on another flight. Immigration officials argue that a visa is mandatory for nationals staying longer than 7 days and that it is the responsibility of air crew to ensure they have the correct documentation on arrival. Captain Ibrahim told immigration officials on arrival that UK maintenance work on the aircraft was scheduled to last between 7 and 10 days. <br/>