No, Doc, I have no first hand knowledge of the operator. As I neither have first hand experience nor knowledge of the many sober drivers arrested for DUI even after blowing zero due to incompetent or ill trained officers that remained on the force without corrective action and continued doing same even though municipalities continue to pay law suits for same.
.... but, my, as well as likely everyone that watched the depo, would say the 135 operator is irrelevant. The ASI was flat out ignorant and wrong regardless and any other facts. Maybe you watched a different video in which ASI knew operator has no obligation to maintain past inspection docs not required no matter how much ASI believes otherwise..... maybe ASI in your video looked to see if there was actually a lav trash can and no smoke detector before grounding the operation (the plane did not even have can and thus no detector), rather than just assuming there was and citing violation... or perhaps your ASI actually looked in logs to see if there was current 100 hr inspection rather than just assume it was past due and issue violation. The operator seems to had 30 year trouble-free history, or even if they crashed a plane a week, is irrelevant. Several eyes at FSDO review serious things like an emergency grounding, and not one spoke up, questioned the non-A&P ASI to make such a finding, and no one reaching out to operator based on such stark findings before issuance.
So yes, I drew my conclusion from depo, as would/does the legal system.
