Pilots will soon need photo identification to sit flying exams in a move to tighten controls on the granting of licences after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
From this September, pilots will not be able to sit exams unless they have a New Zealand driver's licence, passport, airport identitycard or official identity card.
The Civil Aviation Authority was concerned that it was too easy to forge or impersonate someone using only paper identification and a signature.
After last year's attacks, intelligence services questioned training schools and exam centres to find out if anyone suspicious was among the 11,000 a year who sit flying exams.
No direct links to New Zealand have been confirmed, but a few incidents were close to home. A month after the attacks on the US, the Herald learned that the Security Intelligence Service had investigated a visit by two Arab men to a Hamilton photocopying centre.
The shop-owners said the men made copies of an aircraft manual for the same type of planes that were used in the hijacks. The manual was in Arabic.
In December, a 26-year-old man suspected of links with Osama bin Laden's terrorist network confessed to planning suicide attacks in Australia, where he trained as a pilot in 1997 and 1998.
The CAA does background checks on every person sitting an exam before approving a licence, but the checks are based on the assumption that the right person sat the exam.
