Bipin Shah   Self Employed
MUMBAI: She damaged an aircraft propeller and nose gear in two separate landing incidents when she was undergoing training for a commercial pilot licence (CPL) in the US in 2008. At that time, Garima Passi was in the SpiceJet cadet training program and she could have joined the airline as a trainee co-pilot if she had completed her course successfully.

After these two incidents, the flying school monitored her progress and found that she was was a poor student who was "inconsistent in her flying". On recommedation from the school, SpiceJet terminated her from their program. She returned to the country and within a year earned a CPL from an Indian flying school. Then, in 2009, at a time when there were hundreds of jobless pilots in the market, Garima, who is the daughter of R S Passi, Director, Air Safety in the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), managed to get employed with SpiceJet as a trainee co-pilot.

On Thursday, she tendered her resignation. "Garima Passi had been suspended from flying while we awaited the full investigations to be concluded. This morning she has resigned from her job," said a Spice Jet spokesperson. It was the hullabaloo created by the fake pilot license racket that brought Passi's case too under the DGCA scanner.

"There are allegations that her CPL flying training record is poor and so we are checking with the US-based flying school where she did part of her training," said Director General of Civil Aviation, Bharat Bhushan.

The DGCA investigation is not complete yet. The aviation regulator maintains a dossier for each pilot which contains photocopied records of their log books, licences and marks obtained. Sources said since Garima was the daughter of a top official her file was sealed and kept in custody of the director general himself to check the possibility of any tampering. Bhushan confirmed this. R S Passi was not available for comment.

The first complaint came in June 2008 when Capt J S Dhillon, the then executive vice-president, flight operations of Spice Jet received an email from Adria Hatley, executive assistant of Sabena Airline Training Centre where Garima was undergoing training to become a pilot under the airline's cadet training program.
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Mar 24th 2011 23:45