Originally published at: Unlicensed flight instructor gets student killed (video) - Boing Boing
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Spelling of the name is Kozel in the video.
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“Unlicensed flight instructor”: three words that definitely don’t go together. I’m glad the dangerous arsehole is facing consequences.
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From Gail Sherman
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Man, the more you learn abot this guy the worse that it gets. McPherson had crashed two planes prior to this fatal crash. And there were a ton of other warning signs.
Whether or not they knew that his license had been revoked, it’s amazing that any flight school would hire this guy. Even if they didn’t bother to look up the public records available on his flight history and license status, wouldn’t they at least contact previous employers (“oh, that guy who crashed our plane? Nah, we can’t recommend him”) as well as have someone fly with him once or twice as part of the hiring process as a basic sanity check to make sure he was an ok instructor? If they had then they would have probably seen the red flags that the FAA had seen on their check flights with him.
And as the video notes, the FAA screwed up pretty badly too in failing to revoke the instructor certification and contact the flight school, as well as doing a poor job in putting together their investigation.
In my experience the number of would-be commercial pilots and flight instructors far exceeds the number of job openings (or at least that used to be the case when I was flying) so there really should be no reason why any flight school would feel pressured to hire anyone who was less than fully competent.
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Makes me think of all the libertarians who think driving shouldn’t be licensed in the first place. (I’m guessing they feel the same way about pilots?) All problems are presumably handled, as in this case, via lawsuits after all the carnage has occurred.
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Or pilots like the late Inhofe, who was unapologetic after almost killing people in his way:
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There’s been a shortage of pilots, in particular instructors, for the past few years. That has eased some recently with the slow down of airline hiring, but instructors are still at a premium. My first thought was that this unlicensed instructor was probably not vetted because many flight schools are still desperate to hire and retain CFIs. Just speculation though. Tragic no matter the reason.
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Ok, I’ll take your word for that. I just know that when I was learning to fly a quarter century ago my own flight instructor was dirt poor and survived on ramen noodles, but he (and some other instructors) were willing to work for very little pay in order to build up enough flight hours that they could move on and get jobs as commercial pilots for airlines. If you need 1500 hours of flight time to be hired as an Airline Transport Pilot and you can’t afford your own plane your options are either to do something like that or else join the Air Force.
Given your username I’m guessing you’re a lot more experienced in this area than I am. How much are flight instructors getting paid lately?
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