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.

The DPE is the only guy who can fix it. Keep bugging him if the FAA saus they didn't get the 8710. The school might be able to apply pressure to the DPE.

I passed my first 135 checkride with a temporary airman certificate. My PRIA still said Private. Nothing wrong with working with that.

The DPE should be able to issue another temporary certificate. Do you know who the DPE manager is? You need to contact that person and have them track down what's happening. There is no reason why you shouldn't have been able to take the Commercial checkride and have it go through IACRA, it updates instantly, as soon as you complete the checkride and get issued the certificate, IACRA and the FAA database shows you are the grade/rating that you just completed, so that already sounds a little fishy. Sometimes when they mess up the DPE has to submit a paper 8710 or something else requires it. That's most likely what has to be done, but this is what you need to track down.

Hi James. It's good to know that the DPE can issue a new certificate if the old one expires. The problem came about because I took the instrument checkride 2 weeks before taking the commercial checkride. So the DPE couldn't issue a commercial certificate with an instrument rating because IACRA shows that I didn't have an instrument rating. Latest news is that the DPE and the school have contacted the local FSDO and they're trying to look for the paper 8710 that the DPE submitted 2 months ago.

Still, just so you know, you can get hired with a temp certificate. I did. It's 100% legit.

Just curious, when you did your application for the commercial, did you input into IACRA that you had your instrument rating? There's an option to edit your certificate to change what it says you already have.

Yes I did. But for some reason it doesn't show up on the DPE's screen when he tried to issue the temporary commercial through IACRA. IACRA would only allow him to issue a restricted commercial. We sat down for almost an hour making several attempts with my instructor to get it to work. Finally he decided to submit a paper application so I could get a commercial certificate with instrument. Anyway, I've emailed the local FSDO myself. We'll see what happens next.

Yes I changed that option to include the instrument rating. However, it just wouldn't show up on the examiner's side when he tried to issue the temporary certificate.



Anyway, I emailed the FSDO and they found the application. They'll be processing it now and should be done in 2-3 weeks. Thanks for all the help guys.

Just an update. I emailed the FSDO. They got back to me and said they found the application and are processing it. So I guess its another few weeks of waiting for the permanent certificate to arrive. At least there's some progress.