A pilot has been arrested at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport for flying passenger planes for 13 years with a false licence.
The 41-year-old Swede was in the cockpit of a Corendon Airlines Boeing 737 about to take off for Ankara with 101 passengers on board when the Dutch police arrested him after a tip from the Swedish authorities.
The Turkish low-budget airline was informed in advance and had a second pilot lined up to take over the flight.
The fake pilot says he has been flying for 13 years on a false licence and had spent at least 10,000 hours flying hours in the cockpit. He had worked for airlines in Belgium, Great Britain and Italy. Once arrested, he appeared relieved that his deception had come to light and immediately removed his stripes.
The man did have a pilot's licence, but it was not valid for passenger aircraft, so he had falsified it.
A lawyer for Corendon Airlines says the fake pilot had worked for the budget airline company for the last two years and had “expertly misled the company with his false papers”. At other airlines he had managed to pass tests with flying colours.
The lawyer called it pure luck that he had never flown alone and said the fake pilot will never pilot a Corendon Airlines flight again.
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