"...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...

FMI: www.faa.gov; www.americanflyers.net; Tribune's story