Court extends fake pilot’s custody
The Swedish man caught flying passenger jets without a proper licence has been remanded in custody for a further 14 days by a Dutch court.
The man was taken from the cockpit of a Boeing 737 at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport on Tuesday, shortly before it was due to take off for Ankara with 101 passengers on board.
He had worked for airline Corendon for two years and had over 10,000 flying hours for airlines all over Europe.
The man, who lives in Milan, faces charges of forgery and flying without a valid licence, the public prosecution department said.
According to CNN investigators in Sweden charged the man several years ago with flying with a fake licence but they did not pursue the case because they couldn’t find him.
The Swedes got a tip recently that the man was flying for a Turkish company and that he would soon be in the Netherlands. They passed that information to Dutch police, which led to the pilot’s arrest, CNN said.
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