"trust me, I'm a pilot"

[iflyfsx]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8549954.stm

So all I have to do is tell an airline I can fly 747s, and they'll let me? Good to know.

Unbelievable. Really. If you saw this in a movie, you would change the channel.

[Steven Tan]

He was "relieved " to have been caught?

[timtomairways]

he did tat for 2 years, hell i would have offered to send him to flight school and re hier him legitimatly, he must know what hes doing

[Recon]

timtomairways wrote:
he did tat for 2 years, hell i would have offered to send him to flight school and re hier him legitimatly, he must know what hes doing

I thought he did it for 13 years long with several different company's.
Or I'm mixing it up with a "other" pilot that is cought.

[KenG]

According to some reports he claimed to have flown with various airlines for 13 years and claimed to have logged over 10,000 hours.

Also according to a police statement, the man had once had a commercial pilot license, but it had expired and it never qualified him for passenger
flights.

Irregardless the individual attempted to perform a credentialed activity without the proper credentials. No matter how good he may be he lied to the
company that hired him, put people at risk by not having the experience he claimed, and made a mockery of all who dedicated themselves as
professionals and worked hard, studied for years, tested and earned their licenses. I could never hire a person who did that for my company.

The guy is just as much of a criminal as Frank Abagnale, defrauding innocent people to make a fast buck.

[DSW334]

But if he shows you the right documents and have some references? How are you going to know he is faking? Especially if he is
showing competence and passing his check rides etc...

[Tracker801]

Any company is able to go through the licensing prior to accepting applications.
In the aviation world, as far as I experienced it, it is a custom to request informations about licenses as well as passed type-ratings and
their validity-dates. At this time, a new system is in the works that keeps track of company pilot details, getting rid of the hog that older
pilots were somehow not listed overall, but were scheduled for flights.
That doesnt get rid of the fact that an unlicensed pilot flew commercial planes and flights. Even if he had a PPL+, he is not licensed nor
type-rated to act as a commercial ATP pilot in any way.
For such, he himself is to blame, but more-over, the company is to blame even worse for not doing the background-research as
applicable.

This incident will have a long lasting effect on applications for some time to come.
Personally, I am happy that in the years he did so, he did not crash. He endangered many people who trusted their lives to him, believing
he was a real pilot.

[KenG]

I do not know how the EU license and credentials pilots or if there is a central repository for pilot information. This could be the crux of the
problem for the company in effect that there are multiple licensing governments who have different levels of access to repositories. It also seems
that the EU is different than the U.S. in that there is an expiration of licenses. In the U.S. at each level you are certified for life or until you
voluntary surrender your license or the FAA revokes your license. The only license that is renewed is the CFI/CFII. (I don't deal with Sport or
Recreation pilots and am not familiar with the nuances of those credentials).

When I check on pilot applicants we run four checks, FAA license and violation checks, NAC (criminal history check), and a drivers license check.
There is still no standard way to check the hours claimed by the pilot which is why I prefer hours from an airline printouts, part 141 school records
or the military. Private flight records (pilot logbooks) receives a lower confidence score when I review applicants and a pilot with a trusted source
documenting his hours will receive more points in that area of consideration on the hiring worksheet. Once we reduce the hiring pool, for one job we
will get about 500 applicants, we will go back and physically verify employment history and hours flown with a company. It is not perfect but it
reduces that chances of a fraud getting hired.