Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 30, 2022 13:52:46 GMT 12
Pilot, 76, loses licence after flouting fundamental tenets of aviation safety for more than 20 years
Marty Sharpe
14:18, Mar 30 2022
Pilot Lindsay McNicol and his Yeoman Cropmaster were reported to the CAA. (File photo) WARWICK SMITH/STUFF
A 76-year-old pilot with a flagrant disregard for aviation safety has been told his attitude is unlikely to improve at his age and he won’t be getting his licence to fly back.
Lindsay McNicol from Waipukurau, gained his private pilot’s licence in 1968. The last time he sat a competency review was November 1996.
Pilots have to undergo a Biennial Flight Review (BFR) every two years in order to ensure they have the requisite skills.
McNicol's licence was suspended in 2019 after the Civil Aviation Authority received an anonymous tip-off that he’d flown from Waipukurau to Hawera and back when neither he nor his plane, a Yeoman Cropmaster, were legally allowed to fly.
An investigation found that McNicol had not completed a BFR since 1996 and the plane hadn’t undergone an annual maintenance inspection.
McNicol admitted the charges and was convicted and fined $3900. He was unsuccessful in applying for a discharge without conviction.
During its investigation the CAA discovered that McNicol had been convicted in Australia on 37 occasions for flying without a pilot’s licence.
The CAA revoked McNicol’s licence in 2020.
McNicol appealed the decision. In his appeal, heard by Judge Chris Tuohy in the Wellington District Court in December, McNicol argued that he had a long record of incident-free flying and the reason for his convictions in Australia was because he had been too busy to obtain the required medical certificate.
In an affidavit provided to the court, McNicol said he kept good health. Yet a medical certificate from 2016 said he was on six different medications and a later certificate said he had ‘’no symptoms since stents placed’’.
In a recently released decision, Judge Tuohy was plainly not impressed by what he called “Mr McNicol’s casual attitude to compliance with aviation safety rules” and for flying aircraft carrying passengers without certification that he was medically fit to fly.
McNicol’s claim he was “too busy” to get his medical certificate “indicates a fundamental misconception of the importance of safety rules”, the judge said.
The judge was similarly unimpressed with McNicol’s assertion that he’d never undertaken a BFR after 1996 because “he thought someone would get back to him if he needed one”, and that the next time he heard about a BFR was when the CAA began investigating him in 1996.
That was “simply not credible”, and “this explanation is worse than no explanation”, the judge said.
Judge Tuohy said McNicol had simply decided a BFR wasn’t necessary and this “demonstrates a fundamentally flawed attitude to aviation safety, that is, that a participant in the system need not comply with rules which apply to them which they think should not”.
It was “prolonged and, in my view, conscious flouting of a fundamental tenet of aviation safety”, the judge said.
There was “no reason whatever to think that Mr McNicol’s attitude or behaviour has changed or will change in the future. It is an entrenched pattern going back almost 30 years”.
“He is now 76, not an age where attitudinal change can be expected,” the judge added, before confirming the CAA’s decision to revoke McNicol’s licence.
www.stuff.co.nz/national/128211365/pilot-76-loses-licence-after-flouting-fundamental-tenets-of-aviation-safety-for-more-than-20-years
Marty Sharpe
14:18, Mar 30 2022
Pilot Lindsay McNicol and his Yeoman Cropmaster were reported to the CAA. (File photo) WARWICK SMITH/STUFF
A 76-year-old pilot with a flagrant disregard for aviation safety has been told his attitude is unlikely to improve at his age and he won’t be getting his licence to fly back.
Lindsay McNicol from Waipukurau, gained his private pilot’s licence in 1968. The last time he sat a competency review was November 1996.
Pilots have to undergo a Biennial Flight Review (BFR) every two years in order to ensure they have the requisite skills.
McNicol's licence was suspended in 2019 after the Civil Aviation Authority received an anonymous tip-off that he’d flown from Waipukurau to Hawera and back when neither he nor his plane, a Yeoman Cropmaster, were legally allowed to fly.
An investigation found that McNicol had not completed a BFR since 1996 and the plane hadn’t undergone an annual maintenance inspection.
McNicol admitted the charges and was convicted and fined $3900. He was unsuccessful in applying for a discharge without conviction.
During its investigation the CAA discovered that McNicol had been convicted in Australia on 37 occasions for flying without a pilot’s licence.
The CAA revoked McNicol’s licence in 2020.
McNicol appealed the decision. In his appeal, heard by Judge Chris Tuohy in the Wellington District Court in December, McNicol argued that he had a long record of incident-free flying and the reason for his convictions in Australia was because he had been too busy to obtain the required medical certificate.
In an affidavit provided to the court, McNicol said he kept good health. Yet a medical certificate from 2016 said he was on six different medications and a later certificate said he had ‘’no symptoms since stents placed’’.
In a recently released decision, Judge Tuohy was plainly not impressed by what he called “Mr McNicol’s casual attitude to compliance with aviation safety rules” and for flying aircraft carrying passengers without certification that he was medically fit to fly.
McNicol’s claim he was “too busy” to get his medical certificate “indicates a fundamental misconception of the importance of safety rules”, the judge said.
The judge was similarly unimpressed with McNicol’s assertion that he’d never undertaken a BFR after 1996 because “he thought someone would get back to him if he needed one”, and that the next time he heard about a BFR was when the CAA began investigating him in 1996.
That was “simply not credible”, and “this explanation is worse than no explanation”, the judge said.
Judge Tuohy said McNicol had simply decided a BFR wasn’t necessary and this “demonstrates a fundamentally flawed attitude to aviation safety, that is, that a participant in the system need not comply with rules which apply to them which they think should not”.
It was “prolonged and, in my view, conscious flouting of a fundamental tenet of aviation safety”, the judge said.
There was “no reason whatever to think that Mr McNicol’s attitude or behaviour has changed or will change in the future. It is an entrenched pattern going back almost 30 years”.
“He is now 76, not an age where attitudinal change can be expected,” the judge added, before confirming the CAA’s decision to revoke McNicol’s licence.
www.stuff.co.nz/national/128211365/pilot-76-loses-licence-after-flouting-fundamental-tenets-of-aviation-safety-for-more-than-20-years
