Pilot Flew Passengers for 13 Years On Fake License

[Wombat_VC]

From Tom's Guide:

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/pilot-Boeing-747-Boeing-737-flight-simulator,news-6824.html

A pilot who flew passenger planes for a 13 years with a forged pilots license has been fined €2,000 and banned from flying for a year.


http://media.bestofmicro.com/thomas-salme,C-I-247986-1.pnghttp://m.bestofmedia.com/i/presencepc/design/loupe.gifZoom (http://www.tomsguide.com/us/pilot-Boeing-747-Boeing-737-flight-simulator,news-6824.html)


Thomas Salme, 41, has been flying passenger planes for the last 13 years, despite the fact that he does not have the license required to do so. Though the Mr. Salme was once a qualified commercial pilot, he was never licensed to carry passengers and his pilot's license was expired when he began flying passengers 13 years ago. Salme accumulated 10,000 unlicensed hours in the air by flying with his expired license, which he had doctored.

(http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2976168/Cockpit-con-was-easy-says-pilot.html#ixzz0oE4SrXeC)
The Sun (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2976168/Cockpit-con-was-easy-says-pilot.html#ixzz0oE4SrXeC) reports that Mr. Salme was working as a maintenance engineer for SAS when a friend let him try the airline's full-scale flight simulator while it was not being used. Salme said he trained in the flight simulator for two to three hours at a time and claims he used it between 15 and 20 times in the space of a year and a half. Using this experience to pass a test-flight with Scandinavian airline, Air One, Salme said it was surprisingly easy to get the job.


"I got the crackpot idea to apply as a co-pilot at a real airline so I made myself a Swedish flying permit with a logo out of regular white paper. It was a fantasy creation. It wasn't laminated and looked like something I'd made at home. It was surprisingly easy."


A big part of the reason why Salme was never caught was that these permits look different in every country.


"The documents look different everywhere in Europe. An Italian airline doesn't know what a Swedish license looks like. And you can forge all the IDs you need."


Salme was caught in April after a tip was sent to Dutch police. He was arrested on a Boeing 737 just as he was about to fly 101 passengers from Amsterdam Shiphol to Ankara in Turkey.


In an interview with Sky News, Salme said that despite feeling ashamed of his actions, passengers on his flights were never once at risk.


"The moral point of view is that I feel ashamed that I did lie but I didn't ever feel, not once, feel that I put passengers in an unsafe position," he said.

[OBIO]

So, after the one-year ban from flying is over, does he get to go back to flying.....on his fake credentials?

[LonelyplanetXO]

LMFAO, there's hope for us yet!

LPXO

[lifejogger]

Interesting story and probably not the first time this has happened nor will it be the last. I thought it was interesting that it said he would be banned from flying for a year. I assume that means after a year he could fly again if he gets his licenses?

[Ken Stallings]

Perhaps despite the illegality of his actions, it points out that perhaps the certification process is overly tedious!

The man did fly 10,000 safe hours!

However, he never earned an ATP, so he is still uncertified to fly that way. I presume the one year ban is a revocation of any other pilot certifications he did earn.

Ken

[tigisfat]

Interesting story and probably not the first time this has happened nor will it be the last. I thought it was interesting that it said he would be banned from flying for a year. I assume that means after a year he could fly again if he gets his licenses?

I'm sure that after the year ban, he could go back to flying on his original and REAL qualifications, but I'd be surprised if any airline hired him.


The funny part is, there are smart people all over who do this. There've been plenty of fake doctors over the years. I say they're smart because picking up on flying or doctoring without any REAL training is the clearly the product of genius.

[Bone]

Eastern Airlines had a guy like this. If I remember right, the man had a long and distinguished career before he was caught.

[Lionheart]

In the early early days, some people taught themselves in a plane, in a field. They would run it down the field, come to a stop, turn around, run it back the other way, then when they were bold, they would start hopping it, getting it a bit airborn and then landing, and then came the real flight....

My dad was flying at 15 and he was self taught.

[brad kaste]

There's a chap by the name of Frank Abagnale Jr. who passed himself off as a pilot for Pam Am but never took controls of the aircraft. He flew as a Pan Am pilot 'deadheading' himself to various locations while in the cockpit of Pam Am aircraft. This was done when he was only 16 to 18 years of age. A pure con artist in many other ways.
A movie was made some years back "Catch Me if You Can" based on the book he had written about his various exploits. The movie didn't live up to the book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Abagnale

[jmig]

Earnest K. Gann writes about such a fellow in his autobiography. This fellow was a horrible pilot and several people including Gann refused to fly with him He was a GREAT BSer however and managed to keep flying until he crashed in South American.

[Allen]

Let me get this. Thomas Salme fly for 13 year on a fake, while in the US we have REAL pilots that are flying drunk?

I'll take the fake pilot, you all can have the drunk ones! There are now words to say how fast I would hire this guy!

[Ken Stallings]

Let me get this. Thomas Salme fly for 13 year on a fake, while in the US we have REAL pilots that are flying drunk?

I'll take the fake pilot, you all can have the drunk ones! There are now words to say how fast I would hire this guy!

That's kind of my point. I mean the ultimate test is can the dude do the job. And, it seems he can do the job well.

Sometimes I think government makes this artificially difficult for reasons that end up becoming weaker than the damage done.

Ken

[jhefner]

Folks; we are looking at this all wrong!

Part of the rational for not deporting illegal aliens is that many of them have been in this country for a long time, even decades, and never caused any problems. Some, who are now grown up, came here illegally when they were very young, so how we can send them back to a place they never knew.

Fair enough. I will now apply this same logic, and firmly state that since this gentleman has been flying for 13 years without incident, he should not be fined, but placed back in the cockpit immediately, and promoted to PIC. He has not caused any problems, and he is doing a job most American's don't want to do. And, since he has been flying sober while other pilots have been flying drunk, he is causing less problems than pilots with ATPs.

-James

EDIT: furthermore, as Lionheart pointed out, pilots used to teach themselves to fly, just as there was no immigration laws back in the 1800s. As others stated, they have made the process of being a citizen...I mean becoming an airline pilot, tooo difficult; so this gentleman's dicision to fly without an ATP is a protest against the system. He should not be discriminated against for doing so. Same for being a doctor, lawyer, etc.