Procedure of changing flight schools...

[thedangerousstuntman]

Hi all,

Is there any way a school can refuse to send your exams results out to you if you wish to change schools. What happens to all the student information when a school goes bust???

My school has not replied to my letter with the correct SRG etc form or answered the phone... No one there when I went to visit... I was speaking to a mate and he suggests 'it's solicitor time'. I don't want to do all the written PPL exams again and folk out for the exams i've already done!!!

Any advive would be very much appreciated...

Thank you in advance,

[modelman]

Your FTO cannot refuse to give you your (originals not copies) training record-you have paid for them and they are your property,they are only the custodians.
Hopefully you can find someone there to hand them to you,don't advise requesting them by post ( are they still trading?).Don't forget to get the hours in your logbook validated by them as well by signature and the FI's licence number.
Shouldn't be a problem but I can imagine some schools getting the hump when you move on.

Good luck

MM

[WALSue]

Good luck with that. My old school went bust November last year and I'm still trying to get hold of my flying records.
After trying various ways of getting in touch, the last thing I've tried is writting to the former owners home address.
At least I'd not taken any exams with them like you did.

Did you get each individual lesson signed in your log book by your instructor?

[thedangerousstuntman]

Thanks for the help,

I have contact numbers of my old instructors so, getting the logged signed shouldn't be a problem...

I believe they have stop trading as I went down yesterday and blinds were closed no one in there...

If they are my property can I go through the courts to retrieve them? this might take a while but at least I will be able to get them back...

I would have thought the CAA would have put something in place to prevent this from happening...

Thanks for the help... any legal advice would be great cheers,:ok:

[Shunter]

Cloud 9???

[BackPacker]

Warning... I'm not a lawyer...

If they went formally bankrupt, instead of just stopped trading, there will be a curator employed. You should be able to find out who that is because he or she has to register him/herself as such with what I believe in the UK is called the public house.

The curator is responsible for tying up all loose ends, settle debt and so forth. If you contact the curator I'm pretty sure he will arrange for you to receive your records without too much of a problem. After all, the records hold no monetary value for anybody. They only have value for you.

It would probably be even better if you get a bunch of students together, and offer the curator to come to the school at a certain time and sort out all the training records, put them in envelopes and mail them out, possibly after making copies for the curators records. One less headache for him, although there might be slight privacy issues with you seeing training records of others.

I don't think it would be necessary to go through the courts. There's no legal dispute that these records belong to you, and they hold no value for anybody else. The problem right now will mostly be accessing the records in the first place and then sorting them out.

[mad_jock]

Speak to the CAA about it. They have a bit of a sense of humour bypass about this sort of thing. It has happened many time before.

The examiner that was responsable for you sitting the exams. Has to keep records themselves. If they haven't they will be in trouble.

Send an email to the CAA explaining whats happened they will know who is the holder of the exam papers that you sat and one phone call from them will sort it out. It might take a few weeks but the worst thing that can happen is all the records turn up at Gatwick.

Good luck

[airborne_artist]

If they went formally bankrupt, instead of just stopped trading, there will be a curator employed. You should be able to find out who that is because he or she has to register him/herself as such with what I believe in the UK is called the public house.

The curator is responsible for tying up all loose ends, settle debt and so forth. If you contact the curator I'm pretty sure he will arrange for you to receive your records without too much of a problem. After all, the records hold no monetary value for anybody. They only have value for you.

In England/Wales the normal term for this is the receiver (if the company has gone bust) or the administrator, if they are still trading but may have assets/goodwill that are potentially saleable.

In either case I'd expect to see a notice on their premises advising people, which you don't refer to.

[mad_jock]

Student records are the resposability of the Head of training or whatever they call the post now. Even if they go bust they can't just dump them all in a skip.

I don't think they are the property of the student because all FTO's have to keep them for 5 years after you have completed the course. Even if you transfer to another school the orginal school keep thier originals and provide copys to the new school.

The caa will be interested if for no other reason to get the exam papers back.

Don't waste your time running around trying to speak to people who don't want to talk to you. They have no choice but to speak to the CAA unless they don't want to hold a post again and potentially loose thier exam approvals.

[thedangerousstuntman]

If they went formally bankrupt, instead of just stopped trading, there will be a curator employed. You should be able to find out who that is because he or she has to register him/herself as such with what I believe in the UK is called the public house.

I will get onto this asap... thanks for that...

As you can probably see the owner or owners aren't goin to be too cooperative to me but might be to the CAA... I'm in contact with them...

I have a feeling that they won't bother with a flying school again. If this is the case what would the CAA be able to use as a threat???

Thanks for your help...

Cheers, :ok:

[IO540]

A limited company doesn't go 'bankrupt' - only an individual can. A company can cease trading, go into receivership (if their bank has a charge on their assets which they usually will have), or go into liquidation.

The problem is that stuff can and does go missing from businesses in 'terminal' stages, and there is little one can do about it. You can talk to the Receiver - he has a responsibility for looking after the assets - but if he doesn't co-operate then you can whistle in the wind. A Receiver is the judge, jury and executioner and short of setting fire to the premises he can do what he wants (as I well know).

Schools have been known to 'lose' exam records for students who changed schools. Airfield politics can get quite 'interesting'; such is aviation.

[Redbird72]

In our school, the CFI is responsible for written exams (not the owners) - only he can unlock the papers or mark them.

If this is the case with your school and the CFI is one of your "old instructors" then he could be able to help you. I would imagine that an FI who is personally responsible to the CAA for administrating exams would have a vested interest in seeing the rules followed.

[DFC]

As has been said your point of contact will be the Examminer who set your papers. If you can not remember who that was then your instructor will or failing that the CAA will help you.

Regards,

DFC

[Whopity]

If you are talking about a registered facility then there is probably little you can do regarding training records if they have gone missing. However you have a log book and that contains records of all flights. Aircraft Technical logs are required to be kept up to two years after the destruction of the aircraft therefore, all flights are traceable and the CAA will accept your log book for training received provided it is correctly entered.

Examination papers are issued to a custodian who is also a Ground Examiner, if the papers go missing the GE is not likely to be reauthorised.

[thedangerousstuntman]

Do you have to get your hours signed off on the SRG form to say you that you have done them with that school?

or just get the instructors to sign them off.

Thanks for the replies so far, very helpful thank you.:ok: