Checkride failure - Question

CoffeeIcePapers

Well-Hung Member
Here is the quick and dirty. My student failed his private checkride on Friday for diversion, everything else was ok.

Today, he takes the checkride, does the diversion fine and comes back to land. There is a NOTAM closing the first 2065 feet of the runway. My student comes in a little low, the tower reminds him not to touchdown on the closed portion, so he adds some power and touches down on the open portion of the runway.

Should this constitute a failure? He never touched down on the closed portion, and I verified this with the tower. In the PTS, it says "any action or lack of action by the applicant that requires corrective intervention by the examiner to maintain safe flight." Since it was the tower that intervened, and not the examiner, do I have any recourse here?
 
I would say the system and the student worked. Also, the student will have an incredible lesson to think about. If you 'pink' him, what will he learn that he hasn't already learned in the incident? Debrief and hand him his ticket.
 
Should this constitute a failure?


Debatable. The PTS specifies that the outcome of any task should "never be seriously in doubt." The examiner arguably had serious doubt about the outcome of the maneuver, depending on how far the student deviated from the required glide path. If the student still had ample opportunity to fix the glide path in the absence of the tower's intervention, the examiner should have given the student the benefit of the doubt.

If you feel that the checkride was not conducted within PTS guidelines, it is possible to have the failure reversedd, according to the examiner's handbook. How blatant the deviation would have to be before this would occur, I don't know.
 
i owuldnt fail him/her for that but it is def something i would have talked to him/her about. also as a cfi i made sure i knew as much as i could about the area before my little boys and girls went up. made sure they knew what to do in case the examiner asked them. i had one of my boys on an instrument check try to go to kfhu for ils and loc approaches. he informed the examiner that the airport was closed to practice approaches and the examiner was quite pleased with his heads up he shot him over to tus for an approach. he then proceeded to give him a bs hold and shot two more approaches. it helps to be heads up.
 
A discussion of the consequences (the danger of bending metal, the danger of not being familiar with applicable NOTAMs, the danger of certificate action, etc) would probably do as much as a bust would.

But I couldn't fault the examiner for busting the student if they decided to.
 
If this was your home airport, and/or it was an expected stop on the checkride, then there is little excuse not to know of the Notam (unless it was issued so close to flight time that it was not possible to get current info)
If a student does not get a preflight brief this should be grounds for a fail. Who knows DPE let's this one slide and the same guys busts a TFR next time, or flies off into marginal weather and into IMC without a briefing.
If he was briefed and just plain forgot then that's one thing, but if he didn't get a brief then that's just slack considering the second ride is just the failed elements of the first and surely not a huge workload.

Maybe a go around would have saved the day - some good ADM shown after questionable prepartion.

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
I'm not a CFI so just my 2 cents.
 
He knew of the notam. In fact, they departed with the notam in place. I guess he had a brainfart or something. I was more upset that he has $600 from my student and now says it would be "unethical" to do a third ride, so now he has to pay another examiner full price for 1 takeoff and landing.
 
The controller should have issued a go-around instruction. That would have been more standard than "hey, the runway doesn't start there, bud", or whatever transpired.
 
He knew of the notam. In fact, they departed with the notam in place. I guess he had a brainfart or something. I was more upset that he has $600 from my student and now says it would be "unethical" to do a third ride, so now he has to pay another examiner full price for 1 takeoff and landing.
If you disagree with the examiner's opinion often enough you could always stop sending students to him. I'm sure he thinks he's doing the right thing but that doesn't mean you have to fund his new BMW or vacation home.
 
He knew of the notam. In fact, they departed with the notam in place. I guess he had a brainfart or something. I was more upset that he has $600 from my student and now says it would be "unethical" to do a third ride, so now he has to pay another examiner full price for 1 takeoff and landing.

The question remains. What is he going to learn by doing another ride, paying the examiner for another ride. He has learned the lesson and after all, that is what instruction is about. To pink the ride and add financial penalties will only reinforce the idea that every mistake has to be paid for. Were that actually the truth, none of us would have pockets without scars.

The emphasis should be on learning and changed behavior, not punishment.
 
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