The revelation that an Air Canada pilot flew for 17 years with fraudulent licences is more than a headline; it’s a governance crisis. Internal audit and compliance functions missed repeated opportunities to uncover the fraud, relying on documents rather than independent validation. The result? A fraud that persisted for nearly two decades, exposing passengers to unacceptable risk and eroding public confidence.
For executives and boards, the lessons are clear:
Professional skepticism must be embedded into every audit process.
Governance credibility depends on robust, independent checks, not blind trust.
Aviation risk lessons remind us that continuous monitoring and real-time assurance are essential in industries where lives are at stake.
If internal audit cannot help detect fraud in time, governance collapses into guesswork.
The question for leaders today: Are your internal audit functions truly equipped to protect what matters most?
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