PRIA question

[freightrash]

I recently got job offer from regional airline.
But my x company's pilot record shows that I was late for show(45min prior to dep.) several times. Do you think this kind of record wil change new employers decision?

 

[WorkinfortheMan]

Flying for an airline means that we are in the business of being on time....If you have been late before on your other job several times, that is a pattern of behavior. Let me put it this way, if your late once.....you get to have a friendly chat with the Chief Pilot...........late twice....."It's been fun, don't let the door hit you on your a** on the way out!!!"

 

[ultrarunner]

Your tardiness is not generated information on a PIRA request. Briefly, PRIA/FOI requests generate the following information:

Certificate Actions
Enforcement actions, adjuticated or not
Verification of Medical certification
Verification of Airman certificates.

Everytime I have filled out a PRIA I check the box that sends me a copy. It's quite brief.

If you checked this box, you'll see what they see.

I recommend you do some reading here:

<http://www.faa.gov/avr/afs/pria/>

Each time I have filled one out I think about that AA Eagle Captain that crummy night in RDU.

 

[TIS]

First, let me say that everything WorkinfortheMan is true. It is important to realize that in the world of aviation it all comes down to money. Individuals and companies have airplanes for various reasons but they all come to one conclusion in common - they're worth the money that's spent to have them.

So let's say you fly one of these planes. Here's what your job means to them; You make their investment worth having. Without you their investment gathers hangar dust. When you're late for showtime you run the risk of delaying the flight. That also wastes time which, funnily enough, is money! Get the picture?

Now, having said all that, it's also important to understand that none of that has anything to do with PRIA.

Ultrarunner's comments are also true - at least in theory. There's one other little phrase that can really stick in the craw of some companies. In addition to the things listed in ultrarunner's post add "Any other documents." This is interpreted at many smaller companies as being a catch-all, in typical FAA form, that is meant to generate your entire work file for the examination of others interested in hiring you. This isn't what PRIA is for but it's what some companies will produce in response to a PRIA request.

Understand that they aren't interested in screwing you. They're interested in NOT screwing themselves by having to defend themselves against the FAA if they're ever accused of failing to provide a complete account of your training history as required by PRIA.

Chances are that you are already in the clear. Most companies will complete their checks on you befor they offer a job but they're not required to. They only have to get the PRIA check done before they put you on line.

If I were you I'd be a lot more concerned about fixing that on time problem than whether this will affect your offer. That stuff about being on time is VERY serious. If you can't do it you can't be a professional pilot! It's pretty much that simple!

TIS

 

[Hobit]

"Each time I have filled one out I think about that AA Eagle Captain that crummy night in RDU."

Can you elaborate?

 

[TIS]

13 December 1994; American Eagle (Flagship Airlines) Jetstream 31; Raleigh-Durham, NC: Crashed about 5 miles (8 km) short of the runway at night in icing conditions and with possible engine trouble. Both crew and 13 of the 18 passengers were killed.

Captain had been terminated by Comair for incompetence and Eagle never knew about it. They hired him thinking he was okay and it turned out he wasn't.

PRIA was the Congressional response to the epiphany that airlines couldn't look into the training history of pilot applicants as a matter of course in the employment process.

NTSB probable cause reads as follows:

The airplane crashed about 4 miles southwest of the runway 5L threshold during an ILS approach. The captain had associated the illumination of the left engine IGN light, illuminated as a result of a momentary negative torque condition when the propeller speed levers were advanced tp 100% and the power levers were at flight idle, with an engine failure. There was no evidence of an engine failure. The captain failed to follow established procedures for engine failure identification, single engine appoach, single engine go-around, and stall recovery. AMR Eagle training did not adequately address the recognition of engine failure at low power, the aerodynamic effects of asymmetric thrust from a 'windmilling' propeller, and high thrust on the other engine. AMR Eagle and Flagship Airlines crew training records do not provide sufficient detail for management to track performance. Flagship Airlines management was deficient in its knowledge of the types of crew records available, and in the content and use of such records.

The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows:
1) the captain's improper assumption that an engine had failed, and 2) the captain's subsequent failure to follow approved procedures for engine failure, single-engine approach and go-around, and stall recovery. Contributing to the cause of the accident was the failure of AMR Eagle/Flagship management to identify, document, monitor, and remedy deficiencies in pilot performance and training. (NTSB Report AAR-95/07)

Pictures: http://www.airdisaster.com/photos/eagle3379/photo.shtml

TIS

 

[ultrarunner]

"Each time I have filled one out I think about that AA Eagle Captain that crummy night in RDU."

Can you elaborate?

It was this captains ability to slip through the cracks and remain anonymous in his incompetence that finally let the the PRIA legislation, follwing the NTSB investigation of this crash.

In addition to the Comair termination that TIS pointed out, there was a termination for similar reasons at a place in WV prior to his Comair gig. If I recall.

 

[Ben Dover]

Regardless of whether tardiness is specifically address on the PRIA, the answer is a very loud YES, your former employer can hose you.

I know of a couple cases where guys were offered jobs at regionals and the offer was later recinded as a result of PRIA. Mind you, these weren't issues of prior certificate or enforcement actions. They were issues involving personality conflict. Chief pilot for some reason doesn't get along with instructor. Instructor lands a job at regional and now it's Chief pilot's turn to mess with instructor by using a liberal interpretation of the PRIA.

It's probably not legal. In one case the instructor got a lawyer to fight it. Don't know the final legal ruling, but it raised enough red flags at the regional they didn't want to hire him regardless.

 

[TIS]

Chief pilot for some reason doesn't get along with instructor. Instructor lands a job at regional and now it's Chief pilot's turn to mess with instructor by using a liberal interpretation of the PRIA.

It's probably not legal.

Whaddya mean? It's COMPLETELY legal. The only way an emloyer is in trouble for complying with a PRIA request is if they willfully and knowingly provide false information in their response. A former employer has VERY wide latitude to express opinions realted to your performance as a pilot. As long as they use undisputable facts in whatever they say, their opinion counts - wihtout recourse for you. The reality is that by the time you've been hosed and figure out exactly why, the job is LONG gone! Even better luck trying to actually prove that you've been harmed by the "willful" actions or your former employer.

PRIA can indeed be interpreted as a civility incentive device.

No one has to worry though if they do their job, keep detailed notes of questionable situations to bring up if you ever need to go to court, and play nice.

TIS

 

[Ben Dover]

I am not a lawyer so I have no ideas what is legal and what is not. At the very least it is unethical and amoral, in my opinion, to attempt to destroy a persons career over a personality conflict.

For example, chief pilot calls an instructor meeting on short notice. Instructor can't make the meeting because it is out of town. Well chief pilot invents a policy that if you miss an instructor meeting you are on a "no fly list." When a request for PRIA on the instructor crosses the chief pilots desk, he writes a discourse on how this particular instructor missed meetings and was on "no fly list." Result: instructor doesn't get job that he has spent year of his life, and tens of thousands of dollars to attain.

I don't disagree with the concept of PRIA. The problem I have is that it gives WAY too much power to the wrong people.

 

[coolyokeluke]

Your tardiness is not generated information on a PIRA request. Briefly, PRIA/FOI requests generate the following information:

Certificate Actions
Enforcement actions, adjuticated or not
Verification of Medical certification
Verification of Airman certificates.

Everytime I have filled out a PRIA I check the box that sends me a copy. It's quite brief.

If you checked this box, you'll see what they see.

I recommend you do some reading here:

<http://www.faa.gov/avr/afs/pria/>

Each time I have filled one out I think about that AA Eagle Captain that crummy night in RDU.

OK I need some advice. I requested my PRIA file from a previous employer because I had a job interview coming up. To give you some background, I was fired for violating a company procedure and damaged an airplane as a result. I was very forthcoming about the situation and was fired. I expected to see some very basic information as stipulated above. What I found was an inter office memorandum directed to my training captains. It detailed mistakes I made in training, logged the amount of time in training, itemized every cost of training, and then specutivley itemized how much repairs would cost the company. I might also note that it was company policy to never write anything positive in a flight eval; they only wrote down mistakes. I think this company was very legal saavy.
Do I have an recourse? I spoke with one of my instructors who wrote me a letter and faxed it to me. The letter said he'd flown with me, I was a competent pilot, my difficulties were not out of line with other new 135 trainees. I also spoke with the chief pilot (who at the time was one of my instructors) and while he said he could not write a letter for me he felt he hadn't seen anything from me that warranted washing me out from training and even said that I could have companies call him.
It's difficult to counter the comments on a case per case basis in the training file; there were no positive actions included, the event was over a year ago and I don't remember all my training events. I know the time to train is more or less the fault of the company; many days I sat around as instructors had to take flights or airplanes were unavialable.
I'm a member of AOPA legal and have a half hour consult with an attorney about the matter. I'm hoping to send a letter to the company. Could this be libel? The person writing the memo was for the most part factual but included "in my opinion" a few times to bring about the conclusion to his pointed memo. I never met or flew with the individual (VP of flight ops) who wrote it.
If I was reading this file as a potential employer, I wouldn't hire myself based on what was written down. How long will this information be there? Do I have a chance of having it removed by asserting it's libel and threatening legal action? I made an awful mistake but I'm a good, safe pilot who learned a very hard lesson. How long will this albatross be on my neck?
Opinions, facts, conjecture and advice welcome!

 

[D.sanchez]

PRIA question

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I recently got job offer from regional airline.
But my x company's pilot record shows that I was late for show(45min prior to dep.) several times. Do you think this kind of record wil change new employers decision?

Here's an article that's interesting and should help you out alittle. I wouldn't worry about it much, just don't get caught in a lie. Did you learn from these past instances? Did you change your habbits? I was late to work once, and I changed alot of things I was doing as a result.

http://www.fordharrison.com/fh/publications/au/200412/article1.asp

 

[SiuDude]

It my understanding that PRIA requests do not include information from flights schools where one had worked as a CFI, only air carriers. Is that true? In my previous CFI position, I had a "personality conflict" with the Chief.

 

[mhermann596]

13 December 1994; American Eagle (Flagship Airlines) Jetstream 31; Raleigh-Durham, NC: Crashed about 5 miles (8 km) short of the runway at night in icing conditions and with possible engine trouble. Both crew and 13 of the 18 passengers were killed.

TIS

You give that guy too much credit. NTS was a normal light to see in that situation. He destroyed a perfectly good aircraft due to his inabliity to fly an airplane.

 

[TIS]

You give that guy too much credit. NTS was a normal light to see in that situation. He destroyed a perfectly good aircraft due to his inabliity to fly an airplane.

I give him credit for nothing besides crashing the plane. And they're not "NTS" lights. They're IGN lights and they come on the ignition is automatically activated by an NTS event. And finally, I agree - anyone who had spent anytime awake either in ground school or in the sim would know that the appearance of an IGN light in that situation means only one thing - the engine's NTS-ing. The next step is to figure out why, not to jump to erroneous conclusions.

TIS

 

[mhermann596]

I give him credit for nothing besides crashing the plane. And they're not "NTS" lights. They're IGN lights and they come on the ignition is automatically activated by an NTS event. And finally, I agree - anyone who had spent anytime awake either in ground school or in the sim would know that the appearance of an IGN light in that situation means only one thing - the engine's NTS-ing. The next step is to figure out why, not to jump to erroneous conclusions.

TIS

I am sorry I should have said the IGN lights, I stand corrected. I should know better I have 2000 hours in the darn thing. My Bad.

 

[TIS]

I was fired for violating a company procedure and damaged an airplane as a result. I was very forthcoming about the situation and was fired.

There you go. That's the most important thing you said in your entire post. You violated company policy and you got fired for it. That's not an uncommon reason for termination at all. In many cases though there is no financial harm done to the employer by the policy transgression of the employee. That there was here is doubly injurious to your (former) employer.

In light of this, it should be clear to you that even though honesty is the best policy, company procedures and policies are neither created, nor do they exist in a vacuum, and your violation of them could have been anticipated to have the repercussions that it did. If you haven't come to this conclusion yet you should do so now because it forms the basis of what you'll need to say in an interview.

You will need to be clear about what prospective employers will find when they get your PRIA report. Say nothing about the propriety of what's contained there. Speak only to the essential accuracy of its content. Doing anything less will counteract anything else you might say. You will need to accept responsibility for having taken the actions that were in violation of proper procedure and you must take responsibility for the damaging results that followed. You will need to explain that some people learn life's lessons easily and that though you have taken a harder road, you have learned this lesson to a tee. That should be the end of anything you might say. You don't need to say a lot but what you do say must be forthcoming, contrite, and responsible.

Do I have an recourse?

Probably not. Besides recourse pursues a path of not accepting that what you did wasn't what you should have done. You might be able to get an attorney to write a letter saying that you do not believe that such careful notes designed to incriminate or otherwise harm the reputations of a majority of pilots now serving the employer would be found in the file of each. You might be able to assert that yours is an inordinately negative and detailed account designed to support their decision to terminate you and that all this would come to light if discovery were motions were made in a lawsuit filed against them. But what would you gain by doing so?

The truth, with regard to PRIA anyway, is that unless the employer knowingly provides FALSE information in their response to a PRIA request, they are immune to prosecution on any level. That was the whole point of PRIA in the first place. PRIA was put in place because it was recognized that employers refused to divulge facts about an employee’s record for fear of being sued by that employee. PRIA removes that threat unless they are knowingly dishonest.

I spoke with one of my instructors who wrote me a letter and faxed it to me. The letter said he'd flown with me, I was a competent pilot, my difficulties were not out of line with other new 135 trainees.

Good! That’s exactly what you’ll present in an interview. Simply hand them the letter and say that if there are any concerns about your flying abilities that arise from the PRIA report results, the letter should clear up concerns of that nature.

Could this be libel? The person writing the memo was for the most part factual but included "in my opinion" a few times to bring about the conclusion to his pointed memo.

No. Opinions are necessary in this business because try as they might, no one has ever devised a foolproof objective standard for evaluating performance. That’s exactly how the Captain of the accident aircraft that started PRIA got by – he passed an imperfect objective test. No judge would ever find the opinions of a qualified expert regarding the skills of a trainee to be legally injurious to that person so long as they’re true and accurate.

I made an awful mistake but I'm a good, safe pilot who learned a very hard lesson.

That’s about all you can say without dodging the central issue here. You’ll move on when someone decides to take a chance on you and that will depend on how you present all of this in an interview.

TIS

 

[FN FAL]

I am not a lawyer so I have no ideas what is legal and what is not. At the very least it is unethical and amoral, in my opinion, to attempt to destroy a persons career over a personality conflict.

For example, chief pilot calls an instructor meeting on short notice. Instructor can't make the meeting because it is out of town. Well chief pilot invents a policy that if you miss an instructor meeting you are on a "no fly list." When a request for PRIA on the instructor crosses the chief pilots desk, he writes a discourse on how this particular instructor missed meetings and was on "no fly list." Result: instructor doesn't get job that he has spent year of his life, and tens of thousands of dollars to attain.

I don't disagree with the concept of PRIA. The problem I have is that it gives WAY too much power to the wrong people.

Get used to it dude...anybody, anywhere, can put a knife in your back. Your sim partner in a new hire class, the FO junior to you, any captain, anybody in the training department. And that goes all the from the little mom and pop flight school, all the way to the majors.

 

[tyuwerty]

One of the questions on the vast majority of PRIA questionaires is, are there "any disciplinary actions that have not been subsequently overturned?". It is a legal question, it all depends on how your previous employer interprets it and how they choose to reply. They are within their bounds to mention anything that is in your disciplinary file, and are legally required to do so. Whether they do or not is a judgement question on their part.

 

[TIS]

One of the questions on the vast majority of PRIA questionaires is, are there "any disciplinary actions that have not been subsequently overturned?". It is a legal question, it all depends on how your previous employer interprets it and how they choose to reply. They are within their bounds to mention anything that is in your disciplinary file, and are legally required to do so. Whether they do or not is a judgement question on their part.

Because of the way the PRIA statute is written, companies can provide almost anything they want to about you, whether it pertains to training, disciplinary issues, punctuality, etc. - ANYTHING - as long as it's not willfully false. It's all in how the company responding interprets their obligations under PRIA.

Some companies will turn over everything they have on the individual in the (mistaken) belief that this is what PRIA obligates them to do. There's probably some attorney somewhere advising them that they are insulated from liabiity by PRIA and that they could face bigger problems if the feds decide that they were not fully compliant with a PRIA request than if they divulge too much irrelevant information about a person they once employed.

TIS