Falcon 50 Greenville South Carolina Archives

Illegal private charter flight reports take a “dramatic uptick”

November 23, 2020November 23, 2020by Doug Gollan

Newcomers looking for deals and cash strapped private jet owners are causing a surge in illegal charter activity. However, FAA enforcement often misses the mark, industry experts say

Illegal charter can be deadly. Last year’s death of European soccer star Emiliano Sala came on an aircraft not authorized for commercial charters in Europe. It was flown by a pilot who wasn’t qualified. A 2018 Falcon 50 crash that killed both pilots in South Carolina found that maintenance records weren’t up to date. The pilots were not qualified to fly Part 135 charter flights.

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COVID-19 raises illegal charter concerns a year after Sala’s deadly plane crash

July 27, 2020July 27, 2020by Doug Gollan

As private jet travel attracts price-sensitive newcomers, illegal charters with unqualified pilots and aircraft are creating new dangers

“We’ve just got done with a case..The PIC (Pilot-in-Charge) was not typed in the aircraft and the SIC (Second Officer-in-Charge) was a student pilot with less than 50 hours. That’s one of the most unsafe things I’ve seen. This stuff goes on. It happens.”

– FAA Inspector

Back in 2016, I was visiting the headquarters of Jet Linx Aviation in Omaha, Nebraska. Walking with its CEO Jamie Walker between a series of meetings, he suggested I write about illegal charters. He said it was a subject he didn’t think was getting enough attention.

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Pilots in deadly 2018 illegal charter crash were unqualified

June 29, 2020June 29, 2020by Doug Gollan

The Falcon 50 accident killed both pilots and seriously injured the two passengers after overrunning the runway in Greenville, South Carolina

Neither pilot flying the ill-fated Dassault Falcon 50 than overran the runway at Greenville Downtown Airport (GMU) in September 2018 were qualified to operate the flight as a Part 135 charter, according to a final report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

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