"...Threat to Public Health and Safety," Says FAA... or
Not
Jon Hilkevitch, the
Chicago Tribune's transportation reporter, dropped a bomb
on Sunday, saying that, "A DuPage County-based flight school, one
of the largest in the country, has falsified training records and
issued pilot licenses to students who failed written exams and
final cockpit 'check rides,' according to a Federal Aviation
Administration report." He continued, "American Flyers Inc., which
is headquartered at DuPage Airport in West Chicago and has 14 other
facilities nationwide, 'abuses its authority and constitutes an
immediate threat to the public health and safety,' said the FAA's
report."
The story is scathing: it notes that American Flyers, one of a
small number of flight schools that administers its own exams, has
been cited in this purported report as having, at best, really
sloppy records; and, at worst, near-criminal fraud or
negligence.
Except...
The FAA says there is no report. When we called the Chicago-area
office, Elizabeth Cory told us, "There is no report. There is an
open review." She wouldn't tell us much more, "because when a
review is open, we don't discuss it."
She was pretty well convinced that such a report doesn't exist.
In fact, she said of the Tribune's long-time reporter, "I
don't know where he got that information [that there was a report
at all]."
Hilkevitch, though, wrote, "The report, obtained by the
Tribune, was written by a local inspector...
[It] alleged more than 50 violations involving students awarded
private pilot licenses or commercial pilot licenses at American
Flyers schools at DuPage and Palwaukee Municipal Airport in
Wheeling, as well as in Ft. Worth and Addison, Texas; Morristown,
N.J.; and Islip and White Plains in N.Y."
The school denies any wrongdoing; some students say they had
good experiences there, but that they had heard of others who
didn't; there are a lot of quotes and specific, trackable
allegations.
Either Jayson Blair has a new nom de plume and is
working at 'The World's Greatest Newspaper,' or Hilkevitch has done
his homework, and perhaps the FAA is embarrassed that one of its
'star' schools could have such a problem. It's also possible that,
though the Trib has the 'report,' the document itself is
phony (though Hilkevitch's BS filter is generally thought to be one
of the best in the business).
ANN was unable to contact American Flyers by telephone on
Monday.
To blatantly use another news organization's line: We report;
you decide. This one's going to bump along for a long time...
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