Earthboundmsfit

Well of course that's true. But there is a HUGE difference between losing your certificates and losing your freedom.

He absolutely has the former to worry about, but VERY unlikely the latter.

galaxy flyer

It depends…on whether the FAA Legal refers it to the USADA and whether they decide it’s a case they want to make an example out of. Fraudulent documentation gets prosecuted all the time. Far more often than gun law violations at the Fed level.

OscarRomeo

Did you check yes or no on the application? If you checked yes and the AME just didn’t ask then ignore all of the doom and gloom on here.

JohnBurke

Factual information is not "doom and gloom."

This is pretty damn important stuff. The original poster did not seem to know it. The original poster is not the only one who will read the thread, who may need to know it. It bears covering, for those who do not know.

So far as prosecution, we don't act based on "unlikely." Forget your seatbelt and shoulder harness. It's unlikely you'll need them. No need for reserve fuel. It's unlikely we'll need to divert, hold, shoot another approach, encounter more headwind or less tailwind, or have traffic delays. No need for a preflight; it's very unlikely that we'll find anything amiss. Don't worry about falsifying your airman certificate application, medical certificate application, or logbook. Most likely no one will care, and the odds of prosecution are probably close to zero. We're in a jet. What could go wrong?

Earthboundmsfit

A simple case of not reporting a DUI is NOT at all likely to be brought beyond FAA cert revocation, unless one were to be involved in a fatal accident as a result, and of course if that happened the offender is 6 feet under.

They won’t even bring charges against the hoards of people entering the USA illegally from our southern border, and you think they DOJ will prosecute a pilot omitted an arrest on a medical application. NOT gonna happen barring an accident with serious injury or death as a result

Let’s get real now….

JohnBurke

You're quite wrong, and doling out very bad counsel.

Making a false statement on a federal form is not at all the same thing as failing to report.

if one checks the box, and is must be checked in the affirmative or negative, that one has not had an arrest or conviction, one when has, that's far more than a minor lie of omission. It's a direct outright false statement that one has NOT had an arrest or conviction. Not at all the same thing as simply forgetting, or simply not telling, or simply not reporting a DUI. Not remotely the same thing.

The FAA doles out considerable large fines on a regular basis, which are legion and substantial, to say nothing of the certificate action. The FAA does not do criminal action, but has no difficulty whatsoever turning over a case to a federal agency that does.

Regardless of whether one does prison time, the hit to one's career with the enforcement action is enough, to say nothing of the civil penalty.

Earthboundmsfit

OK….you are making my point.

How many times did I say he or she is in very hot water with the FAA. There is no question that he/she will likely face harsh penalties from the FAA.

Absolutely true

OTOH…it’s still a massive leap from certificate revocation and or civil penalties that the FAA can dole out, to criminal prosecution which is only likely in an extremely agregous case.

You and others seem to think losing one’s certificates is on par with losing one’s freedom. As bad as that would be for most of us w our livelihood….it pales in comparison to being locked up.

JohnBurke

No, I'm really not.

The form is quite clear. If you predicate your career survival on "it probably won't happen," then you're a dead man walking, and a bloody idiot. That's not what we do.

The point here is very simple. DON'T FALSIFY THE GOD DAMN FORM. Whether you lose your certificate, men in black erase your mind, flying monkeys take your logbook and beat you mercilessly about the head and shoulders with it until your ears bleed, or you face a civil penalty, or any combination thereof, it's all largely irrelevant if you DON'T FALSITY THE GOD DAMN INFORMATION.

To minimize the act, to suggest it's not a big deal, to imply that it's a mere trifle akin to failing to disclose, to suggest that one won't pay the penalties advertised on the form, to make assumptions (an idiotic endeavor in this business where we don't guess: we know), to play the trumpian game that it probably won't happen is speculative and bad counsel. We don't know what the FAA will do; we do know that the penalty may be, we do know what the form states it will be, we do know that whatever the penalty, it can all be avoided by not falsifying a government document, and dismissiveness does not help the original poster, or anyone else.

I don't know what "OTOH is. I don't speak teenager.

No one here has said any such thing, except YOU.

Seeing as YOU said it, however, I don't differentiate between a threat to my career and a threat to my life. Same thing.

You've spent some time in incarceration, have you?

rickair7777

It has happened recently, a DAL pilot actually went to jail (young guy with a family). Also a corporate guy who blacked out in flight due to diabetes IIRC.

The cases which resulted in prison all specifically involved lying about and then flying with a known medical defect. Maybe they wouldn't go so hard over for a DUI, since that's not clearly a grounding medical condition. But they could.

I do agree that the FAA would shred all of his certs immediately, don't need DOJ or courts for that.

Earthboundmsfit

What triggered the DAL pilot to get caught
and then prosecuted? Must have been a significant event involving being incapacitated in flight.