Warbird Information Exchange

Gene Poore · University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Pilots flying Carolinas Healthcare routinely lie to FAA with no consequences. Carolinas Healthcare does not have an FAA Part 135 Air Carrier Certificate which is required by 'ALL" other legal charter flight companies prior to the charter flight companies charging passengers or patients to ride on their hospital aircraft. If you don't believe this, look up Mecklenburg County case 05-CVS-19860 and file a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the FAA investigation of Carolinas Healthcare flights. In 2008 the FAA investigated an anonymous complaint against Carolinas Healthcare but only called a former Carolinas Healthcare pilot and conducted a telephone interview and closed the case after the Carolinas Healthcare pilot lied to the FAA during the 2008 telephone interview. A Freedom of Information Act request required the FAA to release their 2008 investigation of Carolinas Healthcare which included a transcript of the Carolinas Healthcare pilot's lie to the FAA during the FAA's telephone interview. When the FAA and DOT were informed of the lies that were told by the CHS hospital pilot during the telephone interview, the FAA & DOT took no action. The FAA FSDO office in Charlotte says they will not investigate Carolinas Healthcare because the charter flight company whose FAA license Carolinas Healthcare pays to use is based in Winston Salem and that FAA office is responsible for Carolinas Healthcare flights. The local Charlotte also says they would have to sit at the Charlotte airport every day in order to catch the hospital pilots lying and the FAA does not have time to sit at the airport all day. The local FAA FSDO office also says since the FAA and DOT Office of Inspector General Scott Harding has decided to take no action on the complaints against Carolinas Healthcare, the local FAA FSDO office will not investigate complaints against Carolinas Healthcare flights either. Typically the FAA and DOT will take no action against large, well-funded, politically well-connected, Part 135 charter flight departments. Like the mechanic/pilot charged for having no FAA license, Carolinas Healthcare does not have an FAA Part 135 Air Carrier Certificate either but was able to obtain a "Blanket Exemption" from the old CAB which allows hospitals to operate a charter flight company without an FAA license, which is, in effect, the exact same thing the mechanic/pilot is charged with. The Mechanic/Pilot the FAA investigated is an example of how the FAA will allow a large company like Carolinas Healthcare to operate without the proper FAA license but will attempt to jail a small time mechanic/pilot who does not have the money to ask the court to give him an FAA exemption from being required to possess an FAA license like Carolinas Healthcare. If Carolinas Healthcare can pay another company to use the other company's FAA Part 135 Air Carrier Certificate to charge patients to fly on hospital owned aircraft, why can't the mechanic/pilot also pay another mechanic and pilot to use their FAA license? Per a hospital flight dispatcher who used to work for a major airline, Carolinas Healthcare can obtain their own FAA Part 135 Air Carrier Certificate but will not simply because, if a hospital plane crashes, the hospital will defer all death and injury liability to the company that allows the hospital to use their Part 135 Air Carrier Certificate. Aviation safety experts have fought the FAA to rescind the "Blanket Exemption" hospitals use that exempts hospital from being required to obtain an FAA charter flight license and say this exemption from being licensed is a legal loophole hospitals like Carolinas Healthcare use to unjustly, immorally or unethically enrich hospital executives, while endangering patients, So if justice is equal, why should the mechanic/pilot not also be exempt from having to obtain his own FAA licenses and simply be allowed to use the license of another person or company like Carolinas Healthcare does? Carolinas Healthcare does not lie. Carolinas Healthcare simply places a small disclaimer on their website that states their flights are "operated" by another company and the other charter flight company's FAA license number is listed. So hospitals "legally" operate without the proper FAA license while the pilot/mechanic is charged with "illegally" operating without the proper FAA license. One act is legal and the other act is not legal, but the net effect is the same in that passengers and the public are not protected by the FAA. The local Charlotte FAA FSDO office employees are good and experience aviation experts who appear to want to do the right thing which also makes common sense but appear to be restricted by FAA & DOT officials who in turn are under pressure from lobbyists and elected politicians to allow hospitals all across the USA to use the FAA charter flight license of other companies and not require hospitals to obtain their own FAA charter flight license.


Reply · · November 21 at 3:56am

Ok so let's see if he was working on the plane and it didn't have issues he must have have know what he was doing. Also he was flying sic not pic I know you have to have a multiengine rating to fly sic in a twin but jail time is pretty stupid no body got hurt so I don't really see the issue. Take his PL but to jail the guy is overkill

Ok so let's see if he was working on the plane and it didn't have issues he must have have know what he was doing. Also he was flying sic not pic I know you have to have a multiengine rating to fly sic in a twin but jail time is pretty stupid no body got hurt so I don't really see the issue. Take his PL but to jail the guy is overkill

61.55 Second-in-command qualifications.

(a) A person may serve as a second-in-command of an aircraft type certificated for more than one required pilot flight crewmember or in operations requiring a second-in-command pilot flight crewmember only if that person holds:

(1) At least a current private pilot certificate with the appropriate category and class rating; and

(2) An instrument rating or privilege that applies to the aircraft being flown if the flight is under IFR; and

(3) The appropriate pilot type rating for the aircraft unless the flight will be conducted as domestic flight operations within United States airspace.