Holy Shite!!

[formercia]

'Fake pilot' arrested moments before take-off

The Swedish man has been charged with forging papers and flying without a licence

A Swedish pilot without a valid licence to fly has been arrested at Amsterdam as he was about to fly a jet with 101 passengers to Turkey, Dutch police say.

The 41-year-old man said he had been flying for European airlines for 13 years and had logged 10,000 hours.

Police said he once had a licence to fly small planes but it had expired and it did not allow him to fly large jets.

Reports say the man was relieved his long deception was uncovered and tore off his pilot's stripes in the cockpit.

Turkey's Corendon Airlines said he had been flying for the airline for two years and had "expertly misled the company with his false papers".

The airline said it had been alerted by police and had a pilot standing by to fly the Boeing 737 from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport to Ankara.

Dutch police were acting on a tip-off from Swedish authorities.

The man is in custody awaiting trial for forging documents and flying without a licence.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8549954.stm

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

1. Is a certificate all that important?

Can't you just read "Flying Passenger Jets for Dummies", or "The Compleat Idiot's Guide to the Boeing 707"?

Plus, if anything comes up while in the air, well, Google can provide a link to a Wiki on the problem.

Flying? How hard can it be?

:hi:

[Liberal In Texas]

3. Microsoft Flight Simulator is his friend. n/t

[jdlh8894]

4. Flying? How hard can it be?

Flying? Not so hard. It's the coming down and taking off without incident that make it a bugger!

[formercia]

7. If you have a qualified co-pilot, no problem.

It's that one time that you don't know what to do and you find out your co-pilot doesn't know either.

:hi:

[liberal N proud]

2. Catch me if you can

[formercia]

5. It brought that to mind.

If I remember, he didn't actually fly the aircraft, just posed as a pilot. I may be wrong.

[liberal N proud]

8. Correct, He used to travel mostly and get women.

[formercia]

11. and cash fake airline paychecks to pay for his adventure.

:rofl:

[monmouth]

6. If he's not as cute as Leonardo I say to jail with him....LOL...n/t

[HopeHoops]

9. Well, he wasn't certified to crash a passenger jet, but WAS certified to crash a small plane.

Reminds me of the dream Opus had in "A Wish For Wings That Work"

"Horizontal Aelertooter. Horizontal Aelertooter? 'This is your captain speaking. If anyone knows where the horizontal aelertooter is on a DC-3 could you please press your call button - NOW?'"

[conscious evolution]

10. Give the man a license

13 years and 10,000 hours without an incident shows to me he is qualified.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

12. And he didn't do anything wrong. Not really.

It's not like he brought his kid to work and let the kid talk to the tower or anything crazy like that.

(But yeah, he seems like by now he's qualified to pilot the plane, maybe even train pilots)

[KamaAina]

13. He'll be getting lots of calls from our smaller feeder airlines

the ones that call themselves "American Eagle", "Continental Connection", etc. but are really bottom-feeders who pay pilots burger-flipping money. Seriesly.