[Porsche-O-Phile]

Originally Posted by fingpilot

I'll tell y'all a not-so-funny story about a pilot I wanted to hire after a certain amount of time...

She was a CFII, and was building time anyway she could. Had everything right, was one of those natural aviators (or aviatrix, in this case). I was running a multiple aircraft flight department in Las Vegas (everything from LearJets to MD80's) and I had met her when I was running the Minnesota Northstars flight department. My insurance requirements were a min of 1000 hours, and 400 of that multi PIC. She didn't have that in Minnesnowta, but finally did have it when I saw her again in LAS. I made the descision to hire her (our third female in a flight department of 50+ pilots).

We, as usual, requested her records from the FAA as part of putting her folio together, and discovered that she had a FATAL accident on her record (disqualifying her from our employment, of course).

I called her in, and asked why she hadn't disclosed this on her app or, more importantly, to me.

She had taken a job hauling skydivers to altitude as a way of building multi-engine time, and it was turboprop as well. She said that one of the jumpers in her 3 month stint had a 'streamer' and had smacked the ground, but she had no notice beyond that. A call to the FSDO confirmed that as PIC, she was responsible for all of her passengers from takeoff to landing, even when they were not in the plane.

Was news to me, and to her as well. I heard, many years later, that she got hired by Mesaba, and eventually Nortwest, after she sued the company that had hired her and listed her as 'contributory' to the death of a guy that left her plane voluntarily.

So, avoid the jump business as a pilot unless you want to be responsible for every chain of events not under your control.

Wow - good to know.

I swear the more I learn about the FAA the more I look at it in the same way a fire hydrant looks at dogs. And for the same reasons.

I swear, a plane could get hit by a meteor in the clear blue sky and the feds would find a way to make it be "pilot error". I honestly think they delight in trying to ruin peoples' careers sometimes. I've met a few inspectors who were really cool, but there are always a few...