A crazy story!

[forcedtofly]

I got this story in my e-mail in the Flight Aware newsletter. A guy flew as a 737 pilot for a European airline without the proper credentials for thirteen years. He printed out a fake license when he went for the job.

http://gizmodo.com/5540789/the-guy-who-flew-thousands-of-passengers-as-a-fake-pilot

I thought it was a fascinating story. It's so hard to believe that someone could get away with this for such a long time without anyone catching on. It doesn't scare me too much because I'm sure that this is an extremely rare case, but it does make you wonder. I saw one comment on the article that said something to the effect of: "How can they spend so much time scrutinizing passengers and not even know who is flying the airplane?"

Anyway, just thought some of you might be interested in this one.

[Barb-SAN]

See conversation over at PPRuNe, thread started by our very own MathFox...;)
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/407582-first-officer-flies-13-years-without-license.html

[Aurora]

I think it's a great way to show that it's no master piece to fly a plane, but of course you should have proper training :)

[MathFox]

Yes forcedtofly, an intriguing story; especially if you learn that he became a training captain in his 13 years career, shows that he must have been a competent pilot. He had flying experience when he applied and a valid CPL, it sounds like he was training for the required ATPL and type ratings. His story eventually came out when someone at the Swedish aviation authorities discovered that they had one airline pilot more than licenses and they tracked him after some years of searching.

I don't think that his hiring was unsafe. He was capable and had done (some of) the required training. Furthermore, he went through the introduction training at several airlines and regular recurrent training. I've read no indications that anyone had issues with his competence.
Yes, this incident is egg on the face of at least three airlines that hired a pilot without checking whether his license was valid; I am sure that procedures will have changed there (and procedures were checked at most European airlines.)