IACRA and Commerical Problems
Hi guys. I posted this on pprune earlier and one of the members suggested that I try asking on Airline Pilots Central since this forum is more focused on FAA matters.
Basically I passed my commercial checkride back in August 2018, but after waiting close to 4 months, there's still no news about my commercial certificate. The whole story goes like this.
After doing my instrument checkride, I did my commercial checkride 2 weeks later. Since I did the commercial checkride so soon, IACRA didn't get a chance to update their information about my newly acquired instrument rating. So when the DPE tried to generate my temporary certificate, IACRA would only allow him to give me a restricted commercial certificate (with no instrument rating). Because of this, he decided to fill up a manual paper form to submit to the FAA, and hand-wrote a temporary commercial certificate with instrument rating for me, old-school style.
Fast forward 1 month later and still no news about FAA receiving my commercial application. IACRA has now updated itself and shows that I'm a private pilot with instrument rating. I tried to email the FAA Airmen Certification Office, and they said I should ask the DPE to resubmit a "reconstructed IACRA application" back-dated to the date of the commercial checkride. I passed this info on to the school and the DPE and was told they did exactly that.
So the reconstructed IACRA was submitted around October 2, 2018 and its been 3 weeks already. I emailed FAA once more to check on the status and they still haven't received the application!!
I'm really at a loss for what to do right now. Without a proper commercial certificate, I can't start work. My temporary certificate is only valid for 120 days and expires in early December 2018. With no FAA record of my commercial, I can't even apply for an extension because there's nothing for the FAA to extend!! I could wait another week as it generally takes a month for the registry to update, but I can't keep waiting indefinitely as I got a 120-day countdown ticking away.
I can keep chasing the school, DPE and the FAA, but so far no results. How do other pilots get around this? I can't be the first person in the history of the FAA to do a checkride 2 weeks apart?? I would really appreciate any thoughts or suggestions from fellow forum members on what you think I should do next. Thanks.