What would you do if you found out the plane you bought was not airworthy?

[Pilots Of America Management]

The thread is open again minus unnecessary bickering and personal attacks.

 

[Salty]

Thanks

 

[Skyrys62]

Some years ago a guy I know bought an airplane "with current annual" done by the seller's mechanic specifically for the sale. After the purchase the buyer flew home and a few days later ran into a minor problem, so he brought it into his mechanic. The buyer's mechanic found a number, serious and obvious airworthiness issues (at least I'm assuming uncertified parts used to repair an unlogged gear-up landing is serious). The buyer's mechanic immediately called in the FAA, which dutifully investigated the buyer for operating an unworthy aircraft. FAA action taken against the seller's mechanic (who had been performing work on the airplane for several years)? Zero. Nada. Zip.

Funny to me that a buyer would be held to stricter standards than a seller.

How do you mean?

The bold underlined parts are what I mean.

Seller - blatantly disregards FAA regulation and sells a non-airworthy aircraft with falsified documentation. No repercussions.
Buyer - gets ripped off by the immoral ratbastards. FAA is down his throat.

 

[Salty]

That story doesn’t really make sense. Unless the buyer kept flying after his mechanic informed him of the issue(s) and they were not fixed.

 

[midlifeflyer]

The bold underlined parts are what I mean.

Seller - blatantly disregards FAA regulation and sells a non-airworthy aircraft with falsified documentation. No repercussions.
Buyer - gets ripped off by the immoral ratbastards. FAA is down his throat.

I see what you mean. It's not about the contractual relationship (which as others point out, they get to make their deal) but the FAA response. I can answer part of it,

I never said or even suggested the FAA was down the buyers' throat. I said he was investigated. You may be assuming a lot that didn't happen (@Salty too?j*. The FAA was satisfied the buyer didn't know after a relatively brief conversation. Far more concerned the airplane didn't fly again until properly repaired.

Why the FAA didn't look at the mechanic, I never figured out, but I have my speculative suspicions. I'm not surprised they didn't do anything about the seller. I didn't figure they would. Proving anything more than he unknowingly flew one would have been difficult and expensive, and would have been dealing with events in the past which were not not a present threat to safety. Not a particularly good allocation of priorities and resources.

[*sorry. I was using "investigate" neutrally, as in "to find out the facts.". I forgot the word can be loaded with all sort of extra meaning]

 

[brien23]

My point was that it's not a simple fact of a buyer not doing due diligence. The seller certified the aircraft was airworthy when they signed the annual, but it wasn't.

Time to move on, I have seen aircraft tied up for years for things like this and costing many times more than just fixing the problems. Dumb and dumber, move on their are bigger fish to fry.

 

[Salty]

Time to move on, I have seen aircraft tied up for years for things like this and costing many times more than just fixing the problems. Dumb and dumber, move on their are bigger fish to fry.

The post you quoted was made in early Nov. Some of us have moved on. lol

Actually, I have no news to report on this. The buyer is still waiting on some of the parts from the factory.