C150 down in NY

RotorDude said:
"According to Federal Aviation Administration records, Depuy held a student pilot license issued in October 2013."
I assume (hope) that's just a delay in the database update.
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Or perhaps the other occupant was the pilot.
 
Two sport kids lost to us forever,may they rest in peace.
 
R.I.P.

Interested to see what happened, C150's are really slow airplanes.
 
dell30rb said:
They can be quite a handful for a student pilot.
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Unless the flight was busting the rules, or the pax was actually a CFI, had to have been a PPL at least.
 
James331 said:
Unless the flight was busting the rules, or the pax was actually a CFI, had to have been a PPL at least.
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The pilot only had a student pilot certificate, according to the FAA database.


It does take about 2 weeks for the online database to update after you pass the checkride.
 
dell30rb said:
They can be quite a handful for a student pilot.
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The plane was rented, so the pilot was almost certainly properly certified:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...pstate-new-york-plane-crash-article-1.2367877

Some kind of distress call was made before the crash. The crash site is surrounded by open fields, so if there was an engine failure, it would not have caused a crash in the woods absent pilot error. But if there was structural failure, fire, a malfunction of controls, or pilot incapacitation, there may have been nothing the pilot could do.
 
acrophile said:
The plane was rented, so the pilot was almost certainly properly certified:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...pstate-new-york-plane-crash-article-1.2367877

Some kind of distress call was made before the crash. The crash site is surrounded by open fields, so if there was an engine failure, it would not have caused a crash in the woods absent pilot error. But if there was structural failure, fire, a malfunction of controls, or pilot incapacitation, there may have been nothing the pilot could do.
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*sigh* Just another sh*t report from a "journalist" with atrocious English skills.

What was the distress call? The reported fails to mention.

And just because the kids managed to borrow the plane does not make either of them a properly certificated pilot.

Too sad that two smart kids died. R.I.P.
Look at the bright side, though, Hannah is back on the market.

Wondering what the NTSB will say.
 
dell30rb said:
The pilot only had a student pilot certificate, according to the FAA database.
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No. The FAA database only lists the student pilot certificate, but that's not the same as the database asserting that the individual had only a student pilot certificate.

Furthermore, you don't know yet which occupant was the pilot.

It does take about 2 weeks for the online database to update after you pass the checkride.
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Yes, and it's hardly unusual for newly certified pilots to take a friend flying.
 
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BigBadLou said:
*sigh* Just another sh*t report from a "journalist" with atrocious English skills.
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What problem do you find with the article's writing?

What was the distress call? The reported fails to mention.
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Perhaps the information has not been publicly released. The article contains no obvious inaccuracies. I don't see what you're complaining about.

And just because the kids managed to borrow the plane does not make either of them a properly certificated pilot.
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They didn't "borrow" it, they rented it. There's not the slightest evidence that the renter was not properly certified.
 
I've seen all sorts of weird stuff at flight schools, but I have never, ever, seen a place rent to someone without looking at a pilot's license and medical, let along making a copy of them, before handing the keys over.


As for the public FAA databases, meh, I've seen things take longer, I've seen things get screwed up, heck my 185 has "unknown" on many fields after I registered it.


I would be highly surprised if it was rented to a student pilot with a pax.
 
acrophile said:
No. The FAA database only lists the student pilot certificate, but that's not the same as the database asserting that the individual had only a student pilot certificate.
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I am unsure what you mean by this.


Searched the airman database and the girl has a student certificate from 10/2013. The guy has no certificates. If she rented the plane, she was either checked out for student solo - or had just received her PPL and the license hadn't made it into the online database yet.

Either way, it's unfortunate.
 
dell30rb said:
I am unsure what you mean by this.


Searched the airman database and the girl has a student certificate from 10/2013. The guy has no certificates. If she rented the plane, she was either checked out for student solo - or had just received her PPL and the license hadn't made it into the online database yet.

Either way, it's unfortunate.
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What you said is what I assumed he meant - essentially that the database is a positive reference, not negative. So we can say she DID have a student license but we can't say just from that that she DIDN'T have a PPL.

With all the research they did into the personal lives of the occupants, however, it seems to me that recently passing the PPL check ride would have come up in their interviews and that would have been very material to the story. So still I go hmmm.
 
The database takes 2-3 months to update. They could have completed a PPL in the last few months and it wouldn't be in there.
 
Let's not forget that whomever at the flight school copied her information (if they did that) may have not known the difference between a student license and a temporary airman certificate (if she even had one). They are both paper and look "fairly" similar to the un-initiated.

The girl could have also just outright lied: here's my license give me a plane.

In any of the situations above I would like to believe that before she stepped into that plane, someone qualified checked her out in it to make sure she could actually fly it. If I go to another flight school even though I've got a good amount of hours on a C172 they are still going to want me to prove my competency for insurance purposes.

The only situations (I can think of) that circumvent all of those safeguards is either she duped someone into giving her the keys or managed to get her hands on a 150 without going through the proper channels. Or managed to sneak someone onto the field and into the plane with her without anyone at the school knowing. She could have been signed off on to solo in that but decided she wanted company for a flight.

But man those are pessimistic views, I would hope someone smart enough as she seemed would not do something like that so, benefit of the doubt here is that she was being processed probably right after getting her temporary.

Took me about 2 months to go from Student to Private in IACRA and get my plastic. I was definitely flying as a Private Pilot with my temporary during that time.

In any case, there's probably more to the story.
 
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James331 said:
I would be highly surprised if it was rented to a student pilot with a pax.
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Not impossible. All members have a key that fits all our club planes. Had it since my student pilot days. I could have gone up with pax anytime I wanted. Never did of course.
 
Caramon13 said:
Let's not forget that whomever at the flight school copied her information (if they did that) may have not known the difference between a student license and a temporary airman certificate (if she even had one). They are both paper and look "fairly" similar to the un-initiated.

The girl could have also just outright lied: here's my license give me a plane.

In any of the situations above I would like to believe that before she stepped into that plane, someone qualified checked her out in it to make sure she could actually fly it. If I go to another flight school even though I've got a good amount of hours on a C172 they are still going to want me to prove my competency for insurance purposes.

The only situations (I can think of) that circumvent all of those safeguards is either she duped someone into giving her the keys or managed to get her hands on a 150 without going through the proper channels. Or managed to sneak someone onto the field and into the plane with her without anyone at the school knowing. She could have been signed off on to solo in that but decided she wanted company for a flight.

In any case, there's probably more to the story.
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Highly doubt it, it's written very clearly across each one, add to that most schools have a CFI type look at a logbook or give you a renters quiz or something before tossing you the keys, it's not a responsibility which falls under something the non pilot front desk girl handles at any flight school I've ever seen or heard of.

5 bucks and a beer says the girl was a PPL.
 
"John Goetz, who coached Depuy's cross-country team at Ridgefield High School, said he often spoke with her about flying because he was struck by her achieving a pilot's license at such a young age."

Seems to me based on this comment and a couple of others that she had her certificate.
 
Students have been known to steal planes and do some incredibly dumb things with them. But that is exceedingly rare and there's nothing in these kids' personal histories, as presented in the OP story, that should lead anyone to conclude they stole the airplane.
 
James, yeah you are probably right, it's far easier to believe that the whole "Student since 2013" was just the media reporting what was out there now. Doesn't mean the FAA wasn't processing a license for her, or that she didn't have a Temporary.

I updated my previous post. Nothing about this girl or anything anyone has said about her says "thief" or "dishonest". And, it really is too bad that things turned out the way they did.
 
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The article mentions that the pilot was talking about taking her former coach up in the airplane "last winter but it never happened."

That implies that she finished a ticket or was about to do so. Maybe she got delayed or maybe she finished it and the DB is *really* behind... or other possibilities.

We'll see what they say I guess. Not enough info at this point.
 
Is there any actual evidence that the pilot wasn't actually a PPL (apart from the check of the online database which, as pointed out, is always out of date and behind reality and thus not really evidence)?

If not, then I'd respectfully say the rampant speculation and theories otherwise are unnecessary and we'll just have to wait to see what actually happened in this clearly unfortunate situation.
 
The FAA web site states "We are currently processing permanent Airmen Certificates for temporary certificates that were issued approximately August 1, 2015".

So I agree with those who say it is possible she has passed her checkride and no one has come forward to tell the media that. It is very possible that she pushed hard and got it done just before heading off to school and was wanting to show off a bit to her friends and ran into trouble.

However if she had passed her checkride, I am surprised that no one has yet to come forward and correct the news reports. This could be done by her family, CFI, DPE or the FBO who rented the aircraft to her. So while I agree it is possible she just passed, I am a little doubtful based upon the lack of new information that corrects the initial reporting.

There is a high probability that she was known as a solo student by the FBO who rented her the plane but the FBO did not know she was illegally taking up a passenger. That does happen.
 
SkyDog58 said:
However if she had passed her checkride, I am surprised that no one has yet to come forward and correct the news reports.
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The reports I've seen were incomplete but not incorrect. They accurately reported the student certificate in the database, and did not draw any conclusion as to what other certificates the individual may or may not have had.

They also did not make any assumption as to which individual was the pilot.

And in any case, I'm sure the kids' friends, families, and associates have more important concerns right now than promoting more detailed news coverage of the deaths.
 
SkyDog58 said:
However if she had passed her checkride, I am surprised that no one has yet to come forward and correct the news reports. This could be done by her family, CFI, DPE or the FBO who rented the aircraft to her. So while I agree it is possible she just passed, I am a little doubtful based upon the lack of new information that corrects the initial reporting.
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Do you think "No,we were wrong! She did have a pilot certificate" is the basis for an article that will sell newspapers? CFI/Family may have communicated the truth here but until the facts appear on the FAA website how is the newspaper supposed to fact check?

RIP to the young adults who passed away. It sucks, and correct reporting won't help that... :sad:
 
It's too bad that IACRA doesn't push a "Pending" status to the Airman Inquiry page once the DPE makes his signoff in the system. That would help all of the inquiring minds know what they want to know.
 
SkyDog58 said:
There is a high probability that she was known as a solo student by the FBO who rented her the plane but the FBO did not know she was illegally taking up a passenger. That does happen.
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If that's the case, I feel bad for the CFI who signed her off because he/she will have some explaining to do. My CFI told me that if I were to take up a passenger, and get busted, he would be in deep caca.
 
ABC News proclaims she "shouldn't have had a passenger on board", but its reasoning seems weak and/or jumbled.
 
The only situations (I can think of) that circumvent all of those safeguards is either she duped someone into giving her the keys or managed to get her hands on a 150 without going through the proper channels. Or managed to sneak someone onto the field and into the plane with her without anyone at the school knowing. She could have been signed off on to solo in that but decided she wanted company for a flight.

But man those are pessimistic views, I would hope someone smart enough as she seemed would not do something like that so, benefit of the doubt here is that she was being processed probably right after getting her temporary.

Took me about 2 months to go from Student to Private in IACRA and get my plastic. I was definitely flying as a Private Pilot with my temporary during that time.

In any case, there's probably more to the story.[/QUOTE]

I flew for several months with just my paper copy.
Here is a possible. The student was checked out and rented the plane for an evening flight. The FBO was unmanned and the Student pilot went in and picked up the keys behind the desk then met the friend at the airplane. Both FBO's I trained at had no attendance after 5 PM. But I could pick up the keys once I was cleared to solo.

Just a possible but not a known fact.
 
ted heck said:
The only situations (I can think of) that circumvent all of those safeguards is either she duped someone into giving her the keys or managed to get her hands on a 150 without going through the proper channels. Or managed to sneak someone onto the field and into the plane with her without anyone at the school knowing. She could have been signed off on to solo in that but decided she wanted company for a flight.

But man those are pessimistic views, I would hope someone smart enough as she seemed would not do something like that so, benefit of the doubt here is that she was being processed probably right after getting her temporary.

Took me about 2 months to go from Student to Private in IACRA and get my plastic. I was definitely flying as a Private Pilot with my temporary during that time.
In any case, there's probably more to the story.
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I flew for several months with just my paper copy.
Here is a possible. The student was checked out and rented the plane for an evening flight. The FBO was unmanned and the Student pilot went in and picked up the keys behind the desk then met the friend at the airplane. Both FBO's I trained at had no attendance after 5 PM. But I could pick up the keys once I was cleared to solo.

Just a possible but not a known fact.[/QUOTE]
And on the other end of the spectrum it only took me 8 days to get my plastic after my checkride.. Also where I rent from it's been months since I've actually seen someone from the school. I have pass codes to get the keys and unlock the hanger. So it's not hard to imagine. Either way sucks the same.
 
orange said:
If that's the case, I feel bad for the CFI who signed her off because he/she will have some explaining to do. My CFI told me that if I were to take up a passenger, and get busted, he would be in deep caca.
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What did the instructor necessarily do wrong, though?

Instructor signs of student with limitations x, y and z. Student breaks all of those and even some other FARs... how is that on the instructor?

I am curious as to what the FAA does when the student deliberately busts the rules laid out by the CFI... and the FAR about not carrying pax, etc.
 
petrolero said:
What did the instructor necessarily do wrong, though?

Instructor signs of student with limitations x, y and z. Student breaks all of those and even some other FARs... how is that on the instructor?

I am curious as to what the FAA does when the student deliberately busts the rules laid out by the CFI... and the FAR about not carrying pax, etc.
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Good questions. I just know what my CFI made me promise when he signed me off. He said before I get my ticket, all my wrongdoings are on him. (I'm sure there limitations)
 
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