Originally Posted by
jelloy683
Okay here's the story:
A student here at the flight school where I instruct at went up for his ME Comm Checkride last week. While he was doing an engine out landing he forgot to lower the gear (my guess is because he was under stress and forgot to lower it). The sad part was that neither the examiner nor the student realized the gear wasnt down until they were floating half way down the runway. They did a go around and i guess somewhere during the acceleration process they dinged one of the props. The good news is that there wasnt any engine damage. However, he had to fill out an FAA statement about it. They said that it could either be recorded as an incident or an occurance (no engine damage).
The poor kid is now freaking out because he's worried that potentially having an incident on his record could ruin his chances at working at an airline. I know that they ask that question during interveiws and stuff. What's your guy's take? The FAA hasnt come to any conclusion yet.
Tell him that he doesn't need to worry. Just explain exactly what happened and what he has learned from the experience. Just don't try to rationalize it in any way.
Plenty of guys have much worse than incidents on their record and it has had no effect on their carreer's.
I was once told by an FAA POI that its not whether you have anything on your record or not, It is what you have learned from the experience. He believe in almost all cases it has made a guy a better pilot.