More than just a name in a logbook
A case decided by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) a few years ago demonstrates the type of scrutiny that the FAA may give to an instructor's authority in this regard. It is a case in which the FAA took enforcement action against a flight instructor's certificate to train pilots based on the performance by that instructor's students on their practical tests.
In this case, a flight instructor had been teaching pilot applicants and sending them to the FAA with her endorsement that the students had been trained and were prepared to take the practical test. The instructor had been teaching full-time for about 15 years, and for the most part, her students had successfully completed their checkrides and were awarded airman certificates and ratings. However, a couple of the instructor's students had received failure notices from the FAA designated examiners conducting the checkrides, and this circumstance caught the attention of an FAA inspector.
As the inspector would later testify at the hearing, the unusually high number of problem areas demonstrated by the students during their practical tests caused him to become concerned about the instructor's qualifications to make proper endorsements. Upon further investigation, the inspector identified other concerns. Therefore, the inspector sent a letter to the instructor requesting that she submit to a re-examination of her qualifications to hold her flight instructor certificate. Because she believed that the request was unwarranted, the flight instructor refused, and the FAA initiated action to suspend her flight instructor certificate until she took and passed a re-examination. She appealed.
The NTSB upheld the FAA's action, finding that the FAA had established a reasonable basis for requesting a re-examination. However, the NTSB's ruling seemed to go beyond the facts presented in the case. This case had involved several allegations, including that there was a high failure rate associated with students coming from a single instructor, there was a commonality of failed test items, and the instructor's failure rate had increased over the preceding two years.
But, before addressing these allegations in total, the NTSB considered the single circumstance of one student's failure implicating an instructor's qualifications. The NTSB recognized that instructors routinely make judgment calls affecting the personal safety of others -- for example, when the instructor gives a student an endorsement to make a solo cross-country flight. The NTSB felt that this justified a higher scrutiny of an instructor's actions than might otherwise be given a pilot.
The NTSB stated, "Just as a lack of pilot competence can be a factor in an aircraft incident or accident, a student pilot's failure on a flight test might be attributable to the deficient performance of his or her instructor. That nexus would...be enough to justify a re-examination re-quest of a flight instructor for even one failure of only one of his or her students because the student would not have been able to take the test without the instructor's written endorsement that he or she was ready (i.e., prepared) to take and pass it. A failure therefore inevitably calls into question the validity of the signoff or the adequacy of the instruction underlying it, notwithstanding the myriad other factors that either actually, or could have, caused or contributed to the unsuccessful performance."
The FAA does not routinely re-examine an instructor's qualifications following one student's failure, and it did not do so in this case. There is no indication that the FAA will alter its oversight of instructors as a result of this case. Still, it serves as an indicator of how the FAA's decision to review an instructor's ability to prepare a student may be viewed. And, it serves to remind instructors to proceed with caution when giving en-dorsements that judge the student to be prepared and competent to fly.
Kathy Yodice is an attorney with Yodice Associates in Washington, D.C., which provides legal counsel to AOPA and administers AOPA's legal services plan. She is an instrument-rated private pilot.
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