Emergency Revocation of License

JohnWF said:
I ran into an older pilot who no longer owns a plane nor flies. I recall that a few years back he had an electrical total failure nearing sundown in a mountain valley in Colorado. He landed on a rural road in near darkness because he was fuel critical. No injury or damage. He got fuel and flew home the following morning...highway patrol closed off the road so he could take off. FAA had been notified.

He tells me yesterday that the FAA demanded he turn in his PPL license and called it an emergency revocation.
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So by coincidence he suffered a total electrical failure and a simultaneous fuel-exhaustion emergency? That already sounds curious.
 
acrophile said:
So by coincidence he suffered a total electrical failure and a simultaneous fuel-exhaustion emergency? That already sounds curious.
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Actually, if you suffer a total electrical failure your fuel gauges will very likely read zero. That can really get you nervous, since you must revert to mental calculation of original fuel minus consumption, and I can imagine someone deciding to play it safe and land on a road.
 
JohnWF said:
I ran into an older pilot who no longer owns a plane nor flies. I recall that a few years back he had an electrical total failure nearing sundown in a mountain valley in Colorado. He landed on a rural road in near darkness because he was fuel critical. No injury or damage. He got fuel and flew home the following morning...highway patrol closed off the road so he could take off. FAA had been notified.

He tells me yesterday that the FAA demanded he turn in his PPL license and called it an emergency revocation.
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Did the FAA's demand happen recently or was that also a few years back? If it's only happening now how can that possibly be called an "emergency" revocation? :confused:
 
Everskyward said:
Did the FAA's demand happen recently or was that also a few years back? If it's only happening now how can that possibly be called an "emergency" revocation? :confused:
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There has to be more to this. If it really was a few years back, the FAA would have a problem with the stale complaint rule.
 
PPC1052 said:
There has to be more to this. If it really was a few years back, the FAA would have a problem with the stale complaint rule.
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Depends. If you look at the stale complaint rule, it doesn't apply to enforcement actions involving lack of qualification (although there is a hearing to determine whether the claim really is about lack of qualification).
 
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RotorDude said:
Actually, if you suffer a total electrical failure your fuel gauges will very likely read zero. That can really get you nervous, since you must revert to mental calculation of original fuel minus consumption, and I can imagine someone deciding to play it safe and land on a road.
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If your fuel calculation allowed for a proper reserve and you were monitoring the gauges properly until the electrical failure, then landing on a road without lights rather than continuing to your destination (or to a closer airport, if any), does not strike me as "playing it safe". It sounds more like a poor decision made in panic.

Or else the story is inaccurate. Because all this is even before we get to the subsequent coincidence of passing over a van full of unauthorized immigrants, whom the pilot was somehow able to identify as such while passing over them in the dark during an emergency landing.
 
acrophile said:
Or else the story is inaccurate. Because all this is even before we get to the subsequent coincidence of passing over a van full of unauthorized immigrants, whom the pilot was somehow able to identify as such while passing over them in the dark during an emergency landing.
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Maybe his certificate was yanked because he "forgot" to disclose his hallucinations.
 
MauleSkinner said:
For a 709 ride, you get to keep your paper prior.
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Sometimes, depending on how long until the ride, they may physically take your actual certificate and issue you a Temporary with an expiration date shortly after the 709 ride is scheduled.
 
ISaidRightTurns said:
The FAA may have been "notified" but they never "agreed to". I've been on more than one call where this same thing happened and the AFS inspector told them to get a wrench and a trailer.
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Why would the FAA need to "agree to" it? Notification is all that is required. The FAA does not have the authority to tell people where they can takeoff from.
 
Maybe the reason he no longer has an airplane and no longer flies is that they confiscated it after discovering that it was full of cocaine. :)

Well, ok, I guess that would have made the news on its own.
 
deyoung said:
Maybe the reason he no longer has an airplane and no longer flies is that they confiscated it after discovering that it was full of cocaine. :)
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There's no coke on the western slope, nope, none at all. 'Specially not in Aspen...or Vail...or Telluride. Nope. None.

Oh, by the way, let me tell you about the time I watched a....
 
flyingron said:
Why would the FAA need to "agree to" it? Notification is all that is required. The FAA does not have the authority to tell people where they can takeoff from.
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True, but the FAA does have the authority to punish people for having done it if the FAA decides in retrospect that the takeoff was done "in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another". Having the FAA "agree" to it in advance can be pretty good (albeit not necessarily perfect) legal insurance against such a retrospective judgment.
 
flyingron said:
Why would the FAA need to "agree to" it? Notification is all that is required. The FAA does not have the authority to tell people where they can takeoff from.
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Where is the notification requirement?
 
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