FAA punishment??

[Tug Driver]

I had an "altitude deviation" last night. I thought I was cleared to 4,000 but ATC said they only cleared me to 3,000. I was about 3500 when they issued a traffic alert and caught my mistake. In hindsight, it was my fault. I called the tracon and gave my info to the supervisor. I also mailed a NASA report out this morning.

So, whats the next step? Is this the kind of situation where I loose my license? I have had no other such occurances during my career, and over 1800 accident/inncident free hours.

Also, does this prohibit me from climbing the career ladder down the road?

Thanks

Tug

 

[viper548]

it depends if ATC filled out paperwork or not. I'd call AOPA legal services if you have that. If not, contact an aviation attorney. Filling out the NASA form was the first thing you needed to do. good luck

 

[A Squared]

Don't panic just yet. I'm sure that's not very useful advice at the moment as you're on pins and needles wondering what's going on. Do you know if there was loss of seperation with another airplane? If not maybe nothing will happen. If there was, that increases the chances of something happening. If the FAA is going to pursue it, you'll get a letter of investigation. If you get one of those, you probably should get an attorney before responding to it. You could only get a letter of warning, which goes in your file, then goes away after a period of time. It's possible that you'll get a viloation. Often there is a suspension with that, however if you filed an ASRS report, the suspension will be waived (unless there's more to the story)

 

[landlover]

you'll be fine, i know 2 guys both multi ifr rated that blasted through bravo w/o clearance. one is a airline fo about to make capt., the other a frieghtdog

 

[soarby007]

Did they ask you to call them or did you initiate the call?

 

[avbug]

You've done the right thing by filing your ASRS report. Hopefully when you spoke to ATC in the phone call, you admitted nothing. One should never be adversarial, but one should also not admit anything.

Under Administrative law, you are presumed guilty until proven innocent...or at least you are in the enforcement process within the FAA. Anything you say absolutely will be used against you. It needn't be used against you in the enforcement process...because you're already guilty, weather you did it or not. Where it will be used against you is in the appeal process, before an ALJ, or thereafter.

The next step, if there's to be enforcement action, will be your receipt of a certified Letter of Investigation. The LOI will notify you that you are being investigated for a *possible* violation of the regulation, and will ask you to provide your side of the story. You need to understand right off the bat that the letter isn't asking you to provide your side of the story to defend yourself or to get let off the hook. The purpose of this letter, and it's ONLY purpose, is to encourage you to provide evidence against yourself. You'll be given ten days to submit commentary. The general advice is DON'T. Remember, anything you say will not be used to consider your guilt...you're already guilty. It's only used against you. That's a very important consideration.

You may also be invited to an informal converence or meeting, usually at the FSDO facility, where the enforcement action is being investigated and initiated. Do not attend this meeting without legal representation. That can't be emphasized strongly enough.

Following these efforts to get you to spill the beans, you'll get a notice of proposed certificate action, which is really your notice that your goose is already cooked. You can then appeal...but you're already been found guilty.

This is where your ASRS report, filed in a timely manner, comes in handy. You're still guilty, it's still on your record as a violation, but you needn't serve the sentence. If the sentence is a certificate suspension, for example, your pilot record reflects a violation, but you get to keep your certificate. The record also reflects the suspension, even though you don't actually lose your certificate or privileges for a period of time.

None of this assumes that you will have any certicate action at all. You may very well hear nothing more about this incident again, and hopefully that's the case. But if you do, be prepared. You've already done possibly one of the most important things, and that's file the ASRS report. Now it's a waiting game, which hopefully will result in nothing more than a...wait.

 

[landlover]

You may very well hear nothing more about this incident again, and hopefully that's the case. But if you do, be prepared. You've already done possibly one of the most important things, and that's file the ASRS report. Now it's a waiting game, which hopefully will result in nothing more than a...wait.

Anyone know what the time line is like in said case? How long to wait to know that he no longer needs to worry?

 

[avbug]

6 months, for the "stale complaint rule."

 

[PAPA FOX!]

Under Administrative law, you are presumed guilty until proven innocent...

Let me start out by saying that I get a lot of insight from you about everything and I find it very useful. However in this case you are factually incorrect. Before an ALJ in the NTSB proceedings the burden of proof is on the FAA to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that you did commit a violation. You can read more about this on the NTSB website.

 

[Metro752]

What did you readback?