CNN: FAA Revokes License of CFI in White House Incident

[User546]

What does everyone think about this? Is it more political - we're "doing something" - then it is logical? Theres no doubt the guy screwed up, and was negligent in many areas, but given that there's been countless busts previously, including an evacuation caused by a King Air, do you think this is a bit harsh?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/23/capital.alert.ap/index.html

FAA revokes license of pilot who flew too near White House
Monday, May 23, 2005 Posted: 4:34 PM EDT (2034 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government has revoked the license of the pilot in charge of the small plane that strayed to within three miles of the White House on May 11, forcing the panicked evacuation of thousands of people from the executive mansion, Capitol and Supreme Court.

Though hundreds of people have mistakenly flown into Washington's restricted airspace, this was believed to be the first such revocation.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday that it had issued an emergency revocation of Hayden L. Sheaffer's pilot's license because he "constitutes an unacceptable risk to safety in air commerce."

The agency said no action would be taken against Sheaffer's student, who was also in the plane.

"This action reflects the seriousness in which we view all restricted airspace violations and, in this case, the level of incursion into restricted airspace," said FAA spokesman Greg Martin.

The plane entered restricted airspace and then continued flying toward highly sensitive areas, prompting evacuations of tens of thousands of people as military aircraft scrambled to intercept it.

The student, 36-year-old Troy Martin, who had logged only 30 hours of flight time, had control of the small Cessna single engine plane when a U.S. Customs Service Black Hawk helicopter and a Citation jet intercepted it.

The pair were flying to an air show in North Carolina.

Sheaffer didn't take the most basic steps required of pilots before operating an aircraft, the FAA said.

He failed to check the weather report before leaving Smoketown, Pennsylvania, and he didn't check the FAA's "Notices to Airmen," which informs pilots of airspace restrictions.

 

[Vector4fun]

Take this for what it's worth, an off the cuff and off the record statement from a FSDO safety manager I spoke to last week;

The TSA is pushing to have a law passed that would make violating a TFR a felony. He was serious.

Hopefully, TSA shrinks to an insignificant Govt. backwater before something like that gains "traction" in D.C.

Those of you who thought the FAA was tough on airmen, the TSA and Secret Service would like to have you thrown in jail and loose many of your basic rights along with losing all your ratings....

 

[bafanguy]

Take this for what it's worth, an off the cuff and off the record statement from a FSDO safety manager I spoke to last week;

The TSA is pushing to have a law passed that would make violating a TFR a felony. He was serious.

Hopefully, TSA shrinks to an insignificant Govt. backwater before something like that gains "traction" in D.C.

Those of you who thought the FAA was tough on airmen, the TSA and Secret Service would like to have you thrown in jail and loose many of your basic rights along with losing all your ratings....

That's just plain scary. Why mess around... why not life without parole, or better yet, the death penalty !! The government has to make Joe Sixpack believe they're really doing something.

 

[satpak77]

The TSA is pushing to have a law passed that would make violating a TFR a felony

the morons at TSA will never get this past the lawyer dominated Congress. They can "make it" whatever they want, however to have a successful prosecution, you need 1) Criminal Act and 2) Criminal Intent

to prove Criminal Intent (bear with me, not "intent", but CRIMINAL intent), thats very tough

don't loose alot of sleep on this one

 

[garf12]

So they are still saying that he was a CFI? I thought that AOPA made it pretty clear that he wasnt? I'm I wrong?

 

[transpac]

What does everyone think about this? Is it more political - we're "doing something" - then it is logical? Theres no doubt the guy screwed up, and was negligent in many areas, but given that there's been countless busts previously, including an evacuation caused by a King Air, do you think this is a bit harsh?

What exactly did the KingAir pilot do wrong? My recollection is that the DC problem was caused by a lack of communication between two FAA controllers.

 

[midlifeflyer]

What does everyone think about this? Is it more political - we're "doing something" - then it is logical? Theres no doubt the guy screwed up, and was negligent in many areas, but given that there's been countless busts previously, including an evacuation caused by a King Air, do you think this is a bit harsh?

Not at all. The idiot deserves revocation. This was not the usual unintentional bust where someone just makes a mistake. I'll bet this guy was so cluless it never even crossed his mind that airspace just might have changed a little bit in the past 3-1/2 years even without 9/11/2001.

Sure. In a perfect world, there would not be a restriction on a tiny harmless CE-150 with the carrying capacity less that a Yugo touring the capital. Sure, the whole thing is a huge overreaction, except, thank goodness, for the military pilots who were trying to get the idiot down and their superiors. Kudos to whoever calls the shots for not making this into a real disaster.

But it's not a perfect world. We don't get to strut around saying, "We're pilots so it's okay." Face it. We're a minority group and it's up to us, whether sport pilot or ATP, to bring some professionalism to bear on our flying.

This guy was a jerk. I'm more than willing to say that to non-aviation people and place as much distance between him and the ret of us as I can.

 

[JimNtexas]

So they are still saying that he was a CFI? I thought that AOPA made it pretty clear that he wasnt? I'm I wrong?

The APOA site has the statement from the pilot's lawyer that explains what they were doing. The PIC was not a CFI, but the arrangement the two people had was that the private pilot would "supervise" the flight while the non-pilot passenger (who was a student pilot) would manipulate the controls.

So in effect the pilot was giving what you could call "instruction", but not in the FAR sense of the word.

It was also interesting to note that the PIC was out of landing currency.

 

[gfvalvo]

I assume the FAA used its "Emergency Revocation" powers to pull his ticket. I couldn't be happier. But, just out of curiosity, could he have avoided it by filing a "NASA Form" in a timely manner?

http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/immunity_nf.htm

 

[ultrarunner]

So they are still saying that he was a CFI? I thought that AOPA made it pretty clear that he wasnt? I'm I wrong?

FAA.gov shows a single Hayden Lowery Shaffer Jr., from Lancaster County PA, as owning a Private Pilot Certificate.

This might be our man.

 

[midlifeflyer]

I assume the FAA used its "Emergency Revocation" powers to pull his ticket. I couldn't be happier. But, just out of curiosity, could he have avoided it by filing a "NASA Form" in a timely manner?

http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/immunity_nf.htm

The policy only applies to errors that are "inadvertent and not deliberate." Although the FAA has been known to abuse its powers, the use of the =emergency= revocation power is usually based on factors that indicate that the actions were intentional.

"Intentional" in the legal sense isn't =quite= the same as most common usage. When we think of intending to do something, we usually mean intending the consequences. Most of the time, when the law uses it it means intent to do something that is likely to lead to the consequences.

Throwing snowballs at a house and braking a window is "intentional" whether you were aiming for the window or were =really= trying to hit the wide safe area between.

In the restricted airspace sense, it might be the difference between accidentally blundering into it because you accidentally followed the wrong road (inadvertent) and flying into it because you used some old charts, didn't get a briefing, and had no clue it was there (deliberate).

Obviously some grey in there, but that's been true for the 700 years or so that the word "intent" has been used in this way.

 

[Inconceivable]

No, but he could use the Nasa form as argument for his "constructive attitude" with the NTSB in appealing he revocation or getting it reduced.

As this board biggest civil libertarian and neo-liberal (ok i made that up) I am no fan of the ADIZ, TSA, FBI, Secret Service and whomever else is involved. That being said, I have very little sympathy or empathy for this person. Forget the incursion, forget the briefing, forget the questionable flight instruction--he wasn't current to carry a passenger. If he doesn't care enough to follow that "little" rule, what can he be trusted with?

As for the incursion, yeah people make mistakes. Maybe he wasn't "up" on the details of the D-ADIZ, the FSS procedures, whatever. I am fairly sure he has watched the evening news in the last four years! The self-serving statement from his lawyer probably only pi$$ed of the FAA more--and won't impress an NTSB judge.

If you wave a gun at a cop, you're going to get shot. Dead. I don't like it, but I know it. The same thing applies here. Don't be stupid; don't get hurt. He was stupid. He's lucky he didn't get hurt.

Free advice to this guy: stop wasting money on a lawyer. Your ticket is gone. Spend the next 52 weekends with a CFI and studying--get your ticket back and don't do it again! Tell your friends so that they don't do it. You f'ed up good and proper. Now be a man and stop whinning. You're only making it worse for the rest of us.

 

[gfvalvo]

Free advice to this guy: stop wasting money on a lawyer. Your ticket is gone. Spend the next 52 weekends with a CFI and studying--get your ticket back and don't do it again! Tell your friends so that they don't do it. You f'ed up good and proper. Now be a man and stop whinning. You're only making it worse for the rest of us.

Here's some better free advice for him: get a different hobby.

 

[mrtoy2]

If you have flown anywhere near the capitol, how could you "mistakenly" enter into the airspace? It's pretty obvious where it is. Unless you live in a cave I would believe that "maybe" you wouldn't know about the security changes above the Mall and Pentagon. However, I think the TSA has WAAAAAYYYY to much authority than a $9/hr beauty school drop out should. To borrow a word from a movie: "Quite junior! Mommy and Daddy want to talk!"

 

[MJG]

Here's some better free advice for him: get a different hobby.

Agreed. This pilot is yet another example of what's wrong with GA in general, pardon the pun. These types somehow manage to slip through the cracks and are out there on a daily basis giving the rest of us a bad reputation. I used to just shake my head at some of these people. I always tell people that the folks who fly airplanes are the same ones who drive cars, you have some really good drivers, most are average and some are just complete idiots. I think this guy fits into the latter category quite easily.

In fact he'll fit in with the idiot that brought his brand spanking new 182 to my old FBO one day to fix a "problem" he was having. His complaint: the stall warning horn was going off prematurely. So as I rode back with him to his home airport to drop him off, it became apparent what his "problem" was before we even left the runway. As we roared down the runway this idiot start hauling back on the yoke at about 45-50 kts. Of course the stall warning horn starts going off and he says "see what I mean". I just sat there in disbelief as the 182 eventually struggled into the air and powered away, thank God those things have so much power under the cowl. Then again on landing as he proceeded to fly his final at about 50-55 kts he says "see there it goes again".

Like comedian Bill Engvall says... "here's your sign...."