Busted for Commerical Operations w/o 135 Charter

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Anyone have any experience with FAA enforcement actions against individuals the FAA claims are operating on demand charter services without having the required operating certificates? It's not for me. (I swear.) My inital review of the relevant authority suggests this guy is in for a world of but-hurt. Anyone with any insight or experience as to what actions the FAA will take, what penalities they will seek, size of fines, seizure of planes, etc, are appreciated.
 
Large civil penalties (fines) and possibly some certificate action on the pilot is common response. I've never heard of aircraft being seized.
 
flyingron said:
Large civil penalties (fines) and possibly some certificate action on the pilot is common response. I've never heard of aircraft being seized.
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Unless the DEA gets involved because you're hauling drugs or some other criminal activity like that, they only seize your plane if you don't pay the civil penalty.
 
What are the typical fines they impose? Is it the painful, but not life ending $1000 to $2500 per offense, or do they go hog wild with the $10,000 per offense? Do they count each flight as multiple offenses because of all of the violations that are associated with each flight, or just one offense? If they did that, I could see $50,000 plus in fines from just a single flight or two.
 
Depends on him, I know locals went hog wild on a 134 1/2 operator, but they had been after him for years
 
Well when they went after Howard Fried they hit him up initially for $291,000. He negotiated them down to $10,000 with no admission of guilt. In other cases, I've seen the initial penalty down at $3,000 but $10,000 or $20,000 for most of the small guys, but has been as high as $10M for operating without an air carrier certificate when that was deemed required.

If you think FAA enforcement activity has any consistency or sane rules, you're mistaken.
 
denverpilot said:
The guy who used to write the "Eye of the Examiner" columns for one of the magazines?
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Yep, and they rescinded his examiner designation in the process. There's an article on it in AVWEB (http://www.avweb.com/news/avlaw/181788-1.html). I met Howard at Airventure when he was in the middle of the battle. Nice guy, but understandably bitter at the time.

Frankly, I found a some of his columns lacking in accuracy unfortunately.
 
Either I missed that article in AvWeb or filed it under "if you ever tick off an FAA Inspector, you're completely ****ed and the due-process afterward is a sham" file in my head. Those stories are awful and also way too common.

I've had that AOPA Legal Services thing for a long time now, but have no hopes that it would ever amount to jack squat if the FAA really wanted my ticket. Too many stories of Yodice himself losing, over and over and over again. And usually with $40-$50K spent for the privilege.

Wonder what Fried said to the wrong person at the FSDO that isn't documented anywhere?

Haven't seen R&W post here in a while. Maybe he will be along shortly to tell us about the rose colored glasses view of it all. Kinda miss his insistence that nothing like this stuff ever happens and everyone at FAA bathes in pure sweet smelling bath water hourly and is worth every dime.
 
There's an FAA order (2130.something, IIRC) which includes a table of penalties based on the offense and the situation.
 
Also do a search of violations of 61.113, as receipt of prohibited compensation usually also implies commercial operation without an operating certificate.
 
It's truly amazing when you step back and look at what rules & guidelines our Fed government many agencys and the FAA enforces with an iron fist and which one's they just happen to look the other way on . take for example the overly conjested "commanded airspace" they seem to have NO PROBLEM with at all ever ..You know, All the "large" empty white passenger aircraft nobody talks about.
 
Roguelement said:
It's truly amazing when you step back and look at what rules & guidelines our Fed government many agencys and the FAA enforces with an iron fist and which one's they just happen to look the other way on . take for example the overly conjested "commanded airspace" they seem to have NO PROBLEM with at all ever ..You know, All the "large" empty white passenger aircraft nobody talks about.
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Huh? Given the spelling errors and other stuff, I have to assume this is a troll or someone off his medication.
 
Roguelement said:
It's truly amazing when you step back and look at what rules & guidelines our Fed government many agencys and the FAA enforces with an iron fist and which one's they just happen to look the other way on . take for example the overly conjested "commanded airspace" they seem to have NO PROBLEM with at all ever ..You know, All the "large" empty white passenger aircraft nobody talks about.
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They are not empty...they are fitted with tanks and nozzles for precision spraying of chemicals at 38,000 feet.

OPEN YOUR MIND PEOPLE
 
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