In regard to the issue of so-called "over 200 Chinese pilots with qualification impostures" as conveyed by some media outlets recently, Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has formally said on its website that the incident occurred prior to 2008 and it was dealt with in an extremely serious manner at the time.

During the undertaking of industry-wide safety inspection that was launched lately, CAAC recalled those past flaws for the purpose of warning the entire aviation industry that bygone shortcomings shall always act as strong reminders on safety-related matters.

Furthermore, CAAC also revealed the details on the actual situation over the handling of the incident back then.

In April 2008, CAAC discovered that some of the then pilots of an air carrier did have problems with their past flying history prior to their admittance into the civil aviation sector, so for the sake of eliminating potential safety dangers the CAAC immediately inaugurated a large-scale crack-down action, which was targeting all Chinese carriers, that investigated all civilian aviation pilots' previous flying experience before they were formally transferred to the civil aviation sector.

With the great assistance provided by relevant organizations, a total of 192 pilots with varied level of inaccuracies on past flying history before their civilian pilot career were eventually uncovered whilst the nation's civil aviation watchdog implemented mandatory punishing measures ranging from pilot license suspension to compulsory additional flight training as well as half reduction on past flying time.

Meanwhile, all "problematic pilots" must have gone through additional flight training before they were allowed to pilot the aircraft again after strict assessments. At the time, the authority, in consultancy with other relevant organizations, also made improvements to the civil aviation job entrance procedures for all pilots.

In fact, the sector-focused crack-down action in 2008 had already eliminated the potential safety risks caused by the inaccurate past flying history of some pilots. Since then, CAAC has constantly insisted and focused on the pilot qualification being a key part in the sector's safety supervision with zero tolerance toward any acts of fraud and repeatedly said that if such problem is ever to be discovered in the future, all those offenders will be severely dealt with in accordance with the relevant legislations.

CAAC also said that personal qualification is still the key element in the recent safety inspections carried out industry-wide. The civil aviation watchdog formed six working groups with each of them led by CAAC's top officials have visited all major regions to oversee the inspections. As of now, aforementioned issues are yet to be found.