Hi I'm a little new around here, and would like to read some of your opinions.

I'm a fairly new flight instructor (CFI August of '06) and had my first student fail a checkride. It was a commercial multi ride and from what it sounded like the poor guy just became nervous. I completely agree with the reason he failed. He had the left engine dead from the examiner turning the fuel selector off, identified the correct dead engine, but feathered the right engine by pulling the mixture then prop. This gave them two dead engines and the examiner had to jump in and return power to both engines. This was done on a single engine approach and is obviously very dangerous. We always teach indentify/verify anything in the plane before operating it i.e. identify left throttle, left mixture, left prop before pulling them, and this was pretty out of character for my student. I am disappointed in myself for this failure but relieved my student was ok thanks to the help of the examiner. I am also relieved that he learned a very important lesson and will not likely rush through single engine ops. in the future.

My question is: Is this sort of thing frowned upon for future job opportunities? I am by no means a perfect instructor and still have much to experience. I hope to get into a regional someday, after i pay my dues as an instructor. What should i do if asked about student checkride failures at a job interview?

 

Sometimes sh!t Happens. I had two students, my first two, who both failed on the same day their first checkrides. Then the next week they both passed the same day. So 100% of them got their tickets .

Each one was more than ready. The examiner admitted this. However, the examiner thinks, they were just nervous when in reality I think it was his 8hr checkrides. They both told me they were flat worn out by the time they got to the end.

I don't think you're successes or failures as a CFI will matter too much. Everytime you gain something valuable and that's a good thing. That's what they want to know is if you can learn. Sometimes it's just the people you get to train. My neighbor had the first 15 people he gave CPR to fail on him. That's quite the count but it wasn't his fault. Just the hand he was dealt.

 

never heard of anyone being asked, "ever had a student fail a check ride?" Also either your student pulled the prop and mixture back really, really, really fast, or the examiner needs his head examined for watching him pull the prop back, and then the mixture.

 

Don't worry about it. It will never be asked. I hope you teach your students to identify the dead engine by reducing the throttle before reducing the mixture.

 

dead leg dead engine

 

As someone who has been given checkrides for the past 3 years (mostly multi's) you can usually see where things will be heading after you fail an engine, good or bad. I would agree that unless your student was lightning quick the examiner should have never let things go that far. My left hand usually rest on my knee so I can quickly react to any wrong prop/mixture movement. As an examiner OR a instructor you can't be sleeping especially in any twin. There always trying to kill us. Anyway, back to your question, I was only asked my student pass/fail rate when interviewing for a CFI job. The few regional airline interviews I have been through I have never been asked. Only the "If I called your students what would they say about you" kind of stuff. You really only need to worry about the pass/fail rate when you go to renew your CFI certificate. Your students future with having a fail or pink slip in their file will not hurt him either as long as he/she is open and honest with it if asked in an interview. They usually ask the "What did you learn from this". Hope this helps!

 

Regarding your student pass rate...

I kept the required records of student passes & fails on a page inthe back of my logbook. BIG MISTAKE!

Believe it or not, some tool at a regional interview flipped through my logbook, and didn't like my relatively low pass rate. He became VERY negative over this even though the rest of the interview was flawless. I was the school's "trouble-shooter" cfi and got all the problem students...this led to a lower-than average first-time pass rate. I had NO IDEA that this would be an issue or that anyone would care. The DPE's involved understood and never said anything, and neither did the FSDO.

My recomendation would be to keep your student records in a seperate place, and do not bring them to an interview (unless it is for a CFI job). Only discuss this if asked, and keep in mind that it would be VERY difficult (or impossible) for an airline to verify this.

If you have a 100% (or very high) pass rate that would be a good thing to put on your resume. If it's less than 90%, probably try to avoid having that conversation.

But a single failure is not an issue...it will happen to the everyone eventually.

 

I was asked by Express Jet when I interviewed what my pass fail rate was but not at SkyWest.
Just be honest and it should be no big deal.

 

Seriously... This is in the regional forum??? Who cares??? They only care if you fail check rides... Well not anymore. If you are willing to fly for penny's then come get your wings. You could have a million reasons why a regional shouldn't hire you but at the moment they are sucking up every available idiot to fill a seat. I have flown with guys that have failed every single checkride they ever had and guess what they sit in the right seat of an RJ...

 

That's a little scary! Jeez , every single one??