One day I received a
letter from the TSA (Transportation and Security Administration). It seemed
innocent enough - they wanted to have me call their offices to schedule an in
person review of my flight instructor records. At first, I didn't really think
anything of it since I keep pretty good records and had been instructing for
quite a few years at the time, but for some reason something just didn't feel right, so I telephoned the AOPA legal services division to see if they had ever
come across anyone receiving letters like this. They said that they have not,
but they didnt think it would be anything to be concerned about since there
have been rumors of Independent flight instructors being reviewed by the TSA.
Shortly after the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, the TSA was formed and so were requirements for flight instructors. Many of these requirements and procedures concern themselves with foreign citizens looking to get their pilot certificate or advanced ratings, however there are record-keeping requirements and a procedural nuance requiring all flight instructors to capture information from new students even as citizens of the United States.
I set up a date and
time to meet with the TSA inspector at my local airport. There was a little bit
of confusion, since I live in Indiana, but instruct out of Illinois based
airports. The TSA agent said he was not able to come to an Illinois airport
because it was out of his jurisdiction and we had to meet him in Indiana based
airport, which I thought was strange, so I
arranged to meet him at an airport in Indiana about 20 minutes from my home.
The meeting started
off good. He asked me if he could see my
logbook to which I declined stating that I keep all of my records of students
in a separate file. I showed him the file and the appropriate TSA sign-offs for
all of my students. He wanted to see the
copies of my student's passports and I told him that I did not retain them
since I didn’t want the liability if these records were lost or stolen. He told me that it was required, but I
challenged him to show me the requirement in the regulation.
He said he would get back to me, which he never did. He then asked to
see my proof of my annual TSA training, so I did show him those, but I only had three
past years of evidence. During the question and answer, one of the questions
that he asked was on record-keeping requirements for the TSA, which I thought
was 3 years, but that is actually for the FAA requirement for CFI record keeping,
not TSA.... Which is 5 years. He marked
this in his ledger. I told him that I
had lost the other 2 years of evidence, but I certainly did take them and could
probably provide evidence that I had paid for them through the American flyers
program, which he had never heard of. He
also asked to see my initial training certificate which, luckily I had taped in
the back page of my logbook many years ago when the TSA requirements started. I
didn't think we needed to keep records of that, since the record keeping
requirement was only 5 years for them.
The agent became a
little agitated and proceeded to tell me that not complying with the TSA
requirements could result in a $19k fine, but he was willing to let me off with
a warning and that I needed to be reevaluated after 6 months.
Six months came
along with a phone call from the same TSA agent. I told him over the phone
beforehand that I hadn't had any new students in the six months prior, but he
wanted to meet anyway. The second
meeting was a waste of time. He asked for my logbook again and I declined again
stating that I showed him all of my records already and they are still
current. I basically watched him fill
out paperwork and we said our good bye, but not before he mentioned that he
will be checking in with me in another 6 months.
I then did some research and called the TSA offices
downstate and was able to get a TSA Supervisor.
I politely mentioned to the TSA Supervisor that considering I do instruction for very few students that meet the requirements of 49 CFR 1552.3, I think the
inspection requirements are a little unfounded.
The result of the conversation was that I submitted an affidavit to the
TSA stating that I no longer provide any training as described in 49 CFR 1552.3
which includes training toward an initial pilot certificate, an instrument
rating, or a multi-engine add on.
Admittedly, this was
all done out of frustration, but in reality, I was at a point in my instructor
career where I only had a few students that were going for ratings, and this
gave me the opportunity to focus on specialized instruction and leave the instruction
for ratings to the folks that do it all of the time and are likely a lot better
than me at making sure all of the nuances of sending someone for a rating are
met. A fringe benefit was that I dropped
student pilot training from my liability insurance and saw a drop in premiums.
The moral of this
story is that the TSA is ramping up efforts to identify independent instructors
and review their paperwork. More often
than not, I am sure the experience will be a good one, but for me it was a challenge. The silver lining was that I was able to
focus my efforts on a different side of instruction.