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From: ark@alice.UucP (Andrew Koenig)
Newsgroups: net.aviation
Subject: Re: Declaring an emergency... the ramifications?
Message-ID: <4554@alice.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-Nov-85 10:19:36 EST
Article-I.D.: alice.4554
Posted: Wed Nov 13 10:19:36 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 14-Nov-85 08:58:06 EST
References: <3164@hplabsb.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs, Murray Hill
Lines: 43

> If you are in
> an emergency situation, confess, communicate, climb,  and comply (where
> have you heard that before?).  The controllers are there to help.  If
> there were no violations of the regs, no property damage, no inflight
> fire, and no injury, then there is no reason for FAA hassle.

You are, of course, completely correct.  There is no reason for FAA hassle.

Unfortunately, this is no guarantee that there won't be one anyway.
The FAA seems to like to harrass people for mysterious reasons.
Such as the flight instructor who had one of his students complain
that said instructor had endorsed the student's logbook for
instruction not actually given.  When the instructor appeared before
the FAA, he pointed out that the student's log was "endorsed" with a
rubber stamp, that the instructor had no such stamp, and that he could
prove he was 150 miles away at the time the alleged endorsement had
been given.  Confronted with this, the student admitted he had forged
the endorsements himself.  When the FAA asked the student to put this
confession in writing, the student did so.

That was the end of the matter.  Well, not quite.  Although the FAA had
no further evidence against this instructor, they proposed to lift his
license anyway.  The instructor, of course, appealed.  Since the FAA
was handling the appeal, he lost.  So he appealed again -- to the
National Transportation Safety Board.  Since the FAA had no case whatever,
the instructor won.  He then sued in Federal court under the Equal Access
to Justice Act to recover his legal fees for defending this obviously
frivolous accusation on the part of the FAA.  He won more than $17,000
in legal fees.  Last I heard, the FAA had appealed the award and the
case had not come up yet.

Of course, while all of this was going on, the flight instructor lost
his job.  He had in fact been running the FBO at his home base.
One news of his troubles got around, his insurance company cancelled
his policies.  No insurance, no FBO.  He couldn't get a flying job
anywhere for five years because of this case.  And all because of
one admittedly groundless accusation.



If you declare an emergency, you should assume that you will eventually
lose your license as a result.  That way, you can consider yourself
doubly lucky if you survive the emergency and don't lose your ticket.