OldieButAGoodie

So, after a 15 year hiatus in the industry, I'm getting back in.

Im applying to the regionals and many of the airlines are asking for an addendum, and I dont know how to answer a question.

"have you had any incidents?"

Well, in 2004 I had an inflight electrical fire from a rented twin. I declared an emergency and landed safely at SJC whcih was about 5 miles away. The FBO had to deal with the electrical repairs. It was 20 years ago, so I dont remember if I reporterd it to the FAA, NASA, or the NTSB.

Im wanting to be truthful on these applications, so... What do yall think? Do I check the box that says "yes" and then explain? or is this not an incident? I landed safely, and no damage besides the electrical wires.

Again, Ill answer truthfully and let the cards fall where they do. I just want to know what is the right course of action here for my applications.

And as a side question, do yall think that applications being uploaded to a website have certain answeres just kick you out automattically? (like a DUI, accident, etc)

TiredSoul

Thats not an incident, that’s a “tell me about a time” story.

Myfingershurt

yeah. No bent metal or injuries…no incident/acident.

QRH Bingo

While I do agree with these two in spirit, the definition does muddy the water a bit.

830.2 defines an incident as “an occurrence other than an accident, associated with the operation of an aircraft, which affects or could affect the safety of operations."

830.5 Immediate Notification, subsection (a) “An aircraft accident or any of the following listed serious incidents occur" : (4) In-flight fire;

There is no specification as to what type of fire this pertains to.

GogglesPisano

I would list it. And sleep at night.

Incidents aren't a mark against you on an app and may be an interesting anecdote for the interview. The longer you fly the more incidents you're going to have. There is no way around this. Hell I listed a bird strike in a Cessna because it dented the wing.

rickair7777

Yes, a fire is an NTSB incident and I would use that definition at a minimum unless the employer is more specific.

Historically, checking any such box would delay your eventual call for an interview. Not because they think you're a bad pilot, but rather because applications without such boxes checked are easier for the HR ladies to adjudicate. Not fair to you, but it's not supposed to be. It's supposed to save time and money for the company.

Such an incident will not be a problem at later stages of the process, where pilots are involved. You can often fast-track the usual process by meeting recruiters at job fairs or CP meet & greets (if available to you).

In this climate I doubt the incident box will delay you very much.

TiredSoul

If there is no report it never happened.
You can claim all sorts of heroic events, if there wasn’t a report it never happened.
You can have destroyed an airplane, unless there’s a report nothing ever happened.

BlueJuicer17

Just because something was a reportable incident does not mean it was reported. If it was not reported, then it was never investigated by the local FSDO and or NTSB (which generally only investigates fatal accidents in smaller GA AC).

You could do a search of FAA AIDS system if you remember the date, location of have the registration # of the aircraft in question in your logbook.
https://www.asias.faa.gov/apex/f?p=100:12:::NO:::

You can also do a CAROL Queary on the NTSB website using the same parameters.
https://data.ntsb.gov/carol-main-public/basic-search
https://www.ntsb.gov/Pages/AviationQueryV2.aspx

If it was ever reported to the FSDO, most likely the an Inspector assigned would have narrowed down who rented the aircraft and tried to reach out to you to see what happened. My guess no one ever reported it. Perhaps "tell me about a time story" would not be good as the interviewer may ask "Did you report it per NTSB 830.5. If you do report it on an application, then yes, you would have a good story to tell and it seemed like you handled it well and used good judgement.

rickair7777

This is dangerous... assume there's no record and hope nothing ever comes to light.

Might have been a decent if not assured bet back in the 80's, but for anything in the internet era you're playing with fire if you pretend it never happened.

JamesNoBrakes

100% true and the NTSB doesn't really do incidents anyway. That's basically left up to the FAA to decide and it's subjective. There's no set cutoff between an occurrence and incident. If the NTSB does not classify it as an accident, then it's left for the FAA to decide if it's an incident or occurrence. Occurrences don't make the pilot record, but incidents do, and the FAA holds the pilot record, not the NTSB.

If it happened today, it would likely get classified as an incident, but another facet is that current guidance for the FAA is that they are not allowed to enter the pilot's name and information into the incident report if the pilot actions were not contributing to the event.

But in the past, they did, just as a matter of procedure, whether it was the pilot's fault or not.

So the answer is, "could be". You have to check out your record in the PRD to know.