Student Pilot with 2 hours of instruction takes off and crashes C-172

Stan Cooper

Stan Cooper

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Stan Cooper
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What is that saying I heard once... "he got kilt cause he be needing it."
 
murphey said:
Evolution in action.

Jerry Pournelle? I don't remember the author.
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The student pilot escaped without a scratch, so presumably he can still procreate. There's the grand larceny charge hanging over him which may cramp his style for a while...
 
Stan Cooper said:
The student pilot escaped without a scratch, so presumably he can still procreate. There's the grand larceny charge hanging over him which may cramp his style for a while...
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He didn't steal it. He certainly flew it outside of club policy for a student, but it isn't a theft if he was a dues paying member.

It'll cost him in cash, and probably an FAA sanction for solo without an endorsement and such, but he didn't actually STEAL anything.
 
WWI Not much more than that in the way of training, as long as they got it up and made the flight getting back and landing so much the better.
 
Ravioli said:
He didn't steal it. He certainly flew it outside of club policy for a student, but it isn't a theft if he was a dues paying member.

It'll cost him in cash, and probably an FAA sanction for solo without an endorsement and such, but he didn't actually STEAL anything.
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It'll be interesting to follow the story and see how the "aircraft theft" charge by the airplane owner gets resolved. Isn't theft the same as stealing?
 
This is great. Interesting the student is not named yet. Underage? Privileged?
 
Stan Cooper said:
It'll be interesting to follow the story and see how the "aircraft theft" charge by the airplane owner gets resolved. Isn't theft the same as stealing?
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Theft is the same as stealing.

However, if you are a member of the club you have usage rights to the aircraft. Using the aircraft outside of club policy and/or FAA regulation is not theft.
 
Ravioli said:
Theft is the same as stealing.

However, if you are a member of the club you have usage rights to the aircraft. Using the aircraft outside of club policy and/or FAA regulation is not theft.
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It’s funny seeing this in the news because there was a long and argumentative discussion here or in one of my CFI forums about the TSA training harping on whether or not students should ever have access to airplane keys.

Not a week later, this. Like someone literally wrote the script and filmed it. Hahaha.
 
@denverpilot -- Many student pilots buy their plane first, and then learn to fly it. How you gonna keep the keys away from them?

And in the case of the plane in the article -- the keys are in a key box outside the FBO door. Members know the gate codes to the two gates and the combination for the key box.
 
Ravioli said:
@denverpilot -- Many student pilots buy their plane first, and then learn to fly it. How you gonna keep the keys away from them?

And in the case of the plane in the article -- the keys are in a key box outside the FBO door. Members know the gate codes to the two gates and the combination for the key box.
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Heheheh. See? You’re arguing already.

This is exactly how it started on that closed CFI forum, too... then there was yelling, and screaming, and all that Jurassic Park stuff that Goldblum warns everyone about... :)

It’s just a little blurb in the mandatory TSA training for CFIs nowadays...

The dude who posted it there loves to stir the pot. He finds all sorts of regulatory horse-pucky and sits back and watches the CFI world burn... LOL.
 
denverpilot said:
Heheheh. See? You’re arguing already.

This is exactly how it started on that closed CFI forum, too... then there was yelling, and screaming, and all that Jurassic Park stuff that Goldblum warns everyone about... :)

It’s just a little blurb in the mandatory TSA training for CFIs nowadays...

The dude who posted it there loves to stir the pot. He finds all sorts of regulatory horse-pucky and sits back and watches the CFI world burn... LOL.
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The stupid TSA training I have to do every year says we're not allowed to give out gate codes. I don't know how anyone is supposed to know what it is if I don't tell them. :mad2:
 
Ravioli said:
He didn't steal it. He certainly flew it outside of club policy for a student, but it isn't a theft if he was a dues paying member.

It'll cost him in cash, and probably an FAA sanction for solo without an endorsement and such, but he didn't actually STEAL anything.
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That's what I was thinking yesterday also. It'll be interesting to watch it unfold.

Ravioli said:
@denverpilot -- Many student pilots buy their plane first, and then learn to fly it. How you gonna keep the keys away from them?
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That's how I did it. I always hid the keys from myself until I soloed.

denverpilot said:
The dude who posted it there loves to stir the pot. He finds all sorts of regulatory horse-pucky and sits back and watches the CFI world burn... LOL.
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Levy posts over there too?
 
dmspilot said:
The stupid TSA training I have to do every year says we're not allowed to give out gate codes. I don't know how anyone is supposed to know what it is if I don't tell them. :mad2:
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I have no gate code.
Fezzik, tear his arms off.
 
I agree that it's not theft. But depending on the club contract, it might very well be embezzlement.
 
I had a situation similar to this when I was an instructor. A fairly well-to-do couple, in their 50's, came to the Alaska FBO where I was working. They had purchased a nice Super Cub but had zero flight experience. I started training them. They each had 8 - 10 hours of dual with me and had soloed, the wife was progressing better than the husband. He was having problems with mild crosswinds and I restricted him to soloing only with my approval for the conditions. One Sunday, I got a call from my boss at the FBO. He was yelling at me telling me that the couple had flown to a remote beach about 60 miles away, and had put the Cub on its back. I told him that neither was endorsed for non-local solo flight and definitely not for beach landings. That was the end of that. I never flew with either of them afterward.
 
dmspilot said:
The stupid TSA training I have to do every year says we're not allowed to give out gate codes. I don't know how anyone is supposed to know what it is if I don't tell them. :mad2:
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Plus securing GA planes (outside of using a locked hangar) is a joke anyways.
 
brien23 said:
WWI Not much more than that in the way of training, as long as they got it up and made the flight getting back and landing so much the better.
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A hell of a lot of pilots soloed with less than 5 hours instruction.
Then we made CFIs and they needed the FAA to regulate a living for them.
 
Unit74 said:
I agree that it's not theft. But depending on the club contract, it might very well be embezzlement.
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Don't agree too fast. Many states include "use without authority" in the definition of theft. It harkens back to the technical common law definition of theft, which includes a requirement of an intent to permanently deprive the owner. It was added to criminalize joyriding.
 
I learned to fly at Fullerton in the mid-1960s. It's never been the easiest airport under the best of circumstances. 3200'x60' runway, usually with a crosswind; minimal clearances between the runway, parallel taxiways and parking areas and no overruns; tough to find, especially on a smoggy afternoon; and a busy street, a major rail line and telephone wires angling across the approach end of the runway (the wires are underground now).

And I loved it! :)

In 1969 a newly-minted private pilot botched a landing and let the crosswind drift him off to the right, where he hit my beloved 1966 VW Beetle, then went through the perimeter fence and into the street where he hit another car. Good news was my car was repaired; better news was I was flying the family Cessna 150 at the time, otherwise it would have been parked where the car was.

 
brien23 said:
WWI Not much more than that in the way of training, as long as they got it up and made the flight getting back and landing so much the better.
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Yeah, but what was the accident/fatality rate during training like in WWI? Much, much, much higher than today, I'll wager.
 
Renter's insurance?
 
I assume the club who owns the plane has conditions on the use of the plane. If so, this was unauthorized use and is absolutely theft from a legal perspective. If I give my neighbor permission to use my car to run to the store, and he instead heads out on a cross-country trip that is theft. Just because this guy had access to the keys doesn't get him out of the theft charge.
 
The theft question depends on how the laws are written where it happened. Where I live it would be unauthorized use unless the state could prove the renter intended to permanently keep the aircraft. If all they were going to do was take it around the patch it wasn’t stealing. Just depends on how the laws are written.
 
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