FSDO Inspector Gave Illegal Check Rides

This does make one wonder who at the FAA is watching the paperwork. I mean this guy is an FAA employee and he must have given more checkrides than any other FAA employee in history. You would have thought someone would have noticed.

They gave him 1 year and 1 day prison time so he has to serve the time in a Federal Prison and not a local jail.

I doubt this guy would have passed pilots with obvious inadequate checkrides because that would have caused an even bigger problem for him. With that in mind, I doubt the FAA will be yanking certificates from those that he passed.

Joe
 
IIRC the FAA can pull non-legit tickets at their discretion. From what I have heard if the pilot has taken an additional checkride or type since the incorrectly issued ticket then the pilot can keep it as they assume the later checkride would have caught any deficiencies.
 
MikeD said:
So some ATP-MEL folks will be getting their PVT-SEL certificates back in the mail?
Click to expand...

Probably not. When there was the wholesale fraudulent Mechanic Certificate (A&P) back in 1995, the FAA took a sampling of the graduates and tested them. Then they compared that with a sampling of other people who had held the certificate for an relatively equal amount of time. The results were the same, so the FAA made the determination to let the certificates stand. My guess is that they won't even do the testing this time since the person awarding the certificates did have the authority to award certificates, just not to charge money for doing so.
 
Bandit_Driver said:
IIRC the FAA can pull non-legit tickets at their discretion. From what I have heard if the pilot has taken an additional checkride or type since the incorrectly issued ticket then the pilot can keep it as they assume the later checkride would have caught any deficiencies.
Click to expand...

The FAA "can" reexamine any certificate holder for any certificate held. Although it is typically only done when something indicated the certificate holder does not meet the standards of the certificate, there is no legal impediment to the FAA doing so to any certificate holder with or without a reason.
 
jynxyjoe said:
LOL. Oh '05 I think? I gotta look in the lookbook. You remember Dimitri?
Click to expand...
The name sounds familiar, but my mind can't bring up a face. I remember the receptionist/pilot,and the chief pilot who smoked a lot. I was there in '05 as well!

Back on topic, this story is really amazing. I, too, want to know what will become of all the pilots he's passed, considering many have moved on to establish their careers.
 
Houston said:
My guess is that they won't even do the testing this time since the person awarding the certificates did have the authority to award certificates, just not to charge money for doing so.
Click to expand...

I think the taint of corruptions changes the equation. "$300, lets make it $500, plus an all expense paid golfing trip to the Bahamas in this Cessna 152."
 
WestIndian425 said:
The name sounds familiar, but my mind can't bring up a face. I remember the receptionist/pilot,and the chief pilot who smoked a lot. I was there in '05 as well!

Back on topic, this story is really amazing. I, too, want to know what will become of all the pilots he's passed, considering many have moved on to establish their careers.
Click to expand...
Well anyhow, Dimitri went to Colgan (now at Delta), I don't know where that CP ended up, he was a funny guy.
 
Any CFI who sent a student to this guy and had their student bribe them should be ineligible for an ATP. You know, good moral character and all. Same goes for the pilot taking the ride. A tip is a bribe is a bribe.
 
gulfstreampiper said:
Yes.
Click to expand...
Well, I wouldn't have expected that but... he was always a nice guy and a hard worker with me. If he's the man I met 98% of the time I wish him thr best and that he doesn't have to pay for his mistakes forever.

Takes some giant nuts to come back to this industry after making the news like he did.
 
mshunter said:
Any CFI who sent a student to this guy and had their student bribe them should be ineligible for an ATP. You know, good moral character and all. Same goes for the pilot taking the ride. A tip is a bribe is a bribe.
Click to expand...
I suspect the circumstances were different than the way you're interpreting them. If the examiner was telling CFIs "Hey, I'm an examiner available to give check rides to your students and my fee is $XXX" it sounds an awful lot like what a DPE would say to a CFI, and probably wouldn't appear to the CFI that the guy was soliciting bribes in exchange for passing a check ride. And it's not unreasonable for a CFI to be unaware that the examiner couldn't legally charge a fee. For all we know, the examiner might even have told him that he was allowed to charge a fee if the check ride took place after office hours.

If it played out something like this the CFI was being duped, and I'd have a hard time faulting him.

As for the "bribe," if the examiner was calling it his fee and the applicant was paying him a fee just as he would a DPE, then the applicant was also duped and it would be hard to fault him as well. I believe the term "bribe" is used as a legal classification in order to charge the examiner, and it's easy to envision a situation where an applicant didn't realize that what he thought was an examiner's fee was technically a bribe.

I don't know any more about the situation than what I've read here, so the situation may truly have been a case where all parties knew the examiner was breaking the rules and the money exchanged really was a bribe. But from what I've read here there is plenty to suggest that some of the people involved were not aware that rules were being broken. I think I'd need more hard proof before I'd recommend that the CFIs be punished.
 
It's common knowledge that the FAA cannot charge or accept any money for check rides.

DPE's on the other hand can charge for their services.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Judging from the story on other forums. I think it was more military guys at McGuire giving him a tip for an easy checkride for their ATP. From another forum: "PM me or call baseops or any of the Sqs at McGuire to find more info on Harry who does checkrides on the weekend. Because of his other job he can't charge you a fee. "Tipping" is customary for this type of checkride."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top