What to do?

[woj]

Hi I was looking for a little advice and was hoping someone could help......

I'm currently finishing my Commercial pilot training and am hoping to get a job but I have a small problem!
During my training I had a plane crash which almost caused me to quit flying. I asked lots of people/friends if this would affect my career path and was told that it wouldn't be a problem as I was so inexperienced, that lots of pilots have wheel up landings crashes etc and that I should complete my licence.
I'm almost there now, however I have started to worry about filling out application forms or going for interviews and having to answer the dreaded question ''have you ever had a plane crash?''
Obviously if I don't get asked then I'll keep my mouth shut.......... but just wondered if anyone can offer any advice on what I should do or answer to this question. Will the airlines just throw my application in the bin or will they give me a chance because I was only starting my flying at the time of the accident?
Any advice on what to do will be a great help

[Sygyzy]

I'm not privy to the details of your accident-but if you were in the services or sponsored civil training in these or past times of economic hardship I doubt whether you would have been allowed to continue training. I went through training when the sponsoring airline didn't really need everyone that they'd recruited for training. Almost 50% of my intake didn't make the grade, for any number of non-accident related reasons. The services chop rate is similar.

Since your training was presumably self funded and your training organisation didn't want to kill the cash cow stone dead you were allowed to finish your training.

There are hundreds if not thousands of qualified people looking for a flying opportunity with a blemish free training record. Even a second bite at an ground exam is considered by some as a blemish.

I pains me very much to say this-If this surfaces at any time during your application process, I think you're toast.

[pudoc]

Just wondering, was the crash pilot error or was there a malfunction of some sort or somebody else was at fault?

If it wasn't your fault you might be ok but if it was pilot error you could be in trouble. No idea though.

[Halfwayback]

You're right to decide not to volunteer the information in the first place. However it certainly would go against you if you were to lie in answering a direct question - not just at the time of the interview but even later during your employment.

A more positive approach if you are asked directly would be to say that you did have a training accident and that you have learned a lot from it - and make sure you have examples of what you have learned to answer the follow-up questions.

HWB

[pudoc]

As an example, the Captain of the BA 777 that crashed at Heathrow, through absolutely no fault of his own and complete design fault, was unable to find any other employment when he left BA, and was eventually taken back into BA.

Seriously? I hope that's to do with the fact there aren't many jobs out there and not because he was involved in a crash. If it's because of the crash, that's disgusting.

[BG101]

Hi Woj,

I personally know of 5 different pilots who have had accidents from prop strikes, to nose wheel first / collapse, to total aircraft right off in their first commercial flying job. All 5 are still flying, 4 of which went on to fly larger aircraft!

Although not an ideal scenario, it's by no means end of the road.

Good luck with the job hunt.

[Gear Up Landing]

answer the dreaded question ''have you ever had a plane crash?''

I'm confident this is not a question they will ask you! They might ask for your school report or maybe a reference, I doubt that they would ask such a question to them either.

[wingreencard]

next time use a check list!
if no time : G.U.M.P check!

[de facto]

Incident/accident are relevant to COMMERCIAL flying not pre-licence.
I am rather sure you will be fine,dont sweat it:)

[The500man]

During my training I had a plane crash which almost caused me to quit flying.

If you were being trained at the time, surely you weren't PIC? So are you soley to blame? It sounds like the instructor/ examiner should have prevented you from having a crash in the first place. If you were sent solo before you were ready, that's not your fault either. It might be easier to tell us what actually happened?


As an example, the Captain of the BA 777 that crashed at Heathrow, through absolutely no fault of his own and complete design fault, was unable to find any other employment when he left BA, and was eventually taken back into BA.

He wasn't sacked for the crash, so do you know he wasn't able to find a job elsewhere because he had a high profile incident, or was it because it's hard to get an airline job anywhere anyway? I'm surprised he went back though since in his book he indicated he left due to new staff being trained in such a way that they believed the incident was his fault.

[woj]

Hi evryone and thank you for the advice as I'm finding it such a hard decision to make!!!
The accident happened abroad after completing my PPL and I was working towards my Night VFR. My instructor and I had been out doing some NDB/VOR tracking work for a couple of hours as we came back he suggested I finished off my last 0.3 solo hours. I dropped him off and carried on for a couple of circuits......as I was heading downwind I started to carry out the checks and noticed a problem with the nose wheel not coming down! I investigated further and eventually got three greens, however at this point the engine decided to die!!
My heart almost stopped but I managed to keep my head and noticed we hadn't switched tanks during the training flight, I quickly changed them over, and however the engine never recovered 100%. At this stage all I could is fly the plane to the ground and try to locate a suitable place to land. (Not the easiest thing at night and due to the earlier problem with gear it had caused me to extend downwind so turning back to the airfield was not an option!!)
I eventually managed to get the plane down and walked away unhurt, the plane wasn't so lucky....... I have learnt a lot from this accident as I'm sure we all would, however I'm not sure the airlines would think or see it in the same way...........
I know there must be lots of commercial pilots out there with similar stories and just wondered if anybody can be of any help or offer some sound advice......
Thanks again everyone.

[Martin1234]

As the accident has already happened, as already mentioned learning from it but also being able to move on is probably not a bad thing. Telling a recruiter that you from now on follow AAIB accident reports so you can learn from others' accidents as well might be good..

When being asked about it you can always answer No and perhaps make an annotation that you never had an accident while exercising the privileges of your licence. If you are asked more about it you can tell them more about the accident you had while under training and what you have learned during your training, also mentioning positive things, which you have successfully used after getting your licence.

As you really seem to care if the training accident could hinder you from being employed as a pilot, that might allude that you are motivated and that you made the right choice when choosing to get the licences enabling you to fly for a living.

[fwjc]

MMArdmore - the OP, woj wrote:

(Not the easiest thing at night and due to the earlier problem with gear it had caused me to extend downwind so turning back to the airfield was not an option!!)

I understand from the description as to what happened that this is the reason for not landing back on the runway. (My bold)

[bucket_and_spade]

MMArdmore,

He mentioned he'd extended downwind while dealing with the gear indication problem and obviously decided a return wasn't doable.

[Chunks]

You'll be fine, I personally know of people who have been involved in accidents/incidents - all of them have found employment, many of them with major airlines now in fact. So long as you're honest about what happened in the interview and come clean about it, you'll be all right.