It happens. I know a club in the EU where a nice person showed up, not only already had a licence, but knew how to fly a plane (turbo retract), passed the checkout check flight with an instructor… and started flying people in the UK illegally.
Alot of the time the pilots involved in such enterprises are very competent, they have just put their skills to a foolish use.
skydriller wrote:
What make you think he has a licence?
The fact that the same guy was renting aircraft – for example, G-GEAR. If I was the owner of an aircraft and was renting it out, I’d want to see the pilot’s credentials first……
There was a DPE (examiner) in Houston who was caught smuggling people from Mexico. I don’t understand why he did it – the money examiners make in the US is pretty good, and the risks of being caught people smuggling are very high – not only did he get prosecuted for people smuggling, but the FAA took all his licenses away for illegal charter.
The aircraft in question is now for sale:
https://www.ataviation.co.uk/product/piper-seneca-ii-turbo-n248lt-for-sale-at-at-aviation/
Peter wrote:
Only an idiot will be smuggling anything in a GA plane, because it is so visible…That is true. Nonetheles, I have the feeling that many private jets in Switzerland arrive with smuggled cash money onboard. However, it is not the pilot how summgles the money, but it’s passengers. In this case, the pilot has nothing to fear in case of a customs check.
In this case, the pilot has nothing to fear in case of a customs check.
Not necessarily true… Although they were acquitted in the end, the two pilots in the infamous “Air Cocaine” case spent months in prison and were condemned to 20 years in the Dominican Republic, before escaping to France where they were initially condemned to 6 years. The key argument from the French judge: they should have questioned the amount of luggage for a single pax (26 suitcases with 650 kg of cocaine). The reason they got released was one of the smugglers told the appeals court the pilots didn’t know about it.
Especially in a small plane, PIC responsibility can cover a lot of things I guess.
There were also some Irish pilots flying a Bizjet to Belgium and back to Ireland. The pilots were the normal pilots for the bizjet which was chartered to a third party. The passengers smuggled some drugs on board and all were arrested before take off.
The pilots were held in a Belgium prison for months while the authorities investigated who knew what. It was found (as most understood all along) that the pilots had no idea what was happening.
Sentencing update on this incident
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-65424869
RobertL18C wrote:
Sentencing update on this incident
Up to 7.5 years… What do you get for murder in the UK?
