Not carrying licence...

[Wilton Shagpile]

OK, so I know in EU OPS land you need to carry your licence with you while operating. I was discussing this with a colleage and I reckon that if you forget it and get ramp checked it is just a matter between you and the authority that finds out. However, my colleage thought it was more serious than that and had the potential to impact the legality of the flight / invalidate insurance etc.Could anyone point me to a relevant document to clarify??

[Level Attitude]

Provided a valid Licence is held it seems like a small
thing if a pilot happens to forget it.

However the wording of Part-FCL is:
FCL.045 Obligation to carry and present documents
(a) A valid licence and a valid medical certificate shall always be
carried by the pilot when exercising the privileges of the licence

Since the wording is "shall always" then any flight where the pilot
has left their Licence behind would technically be illegal.

I would hope there wouldn't be any fines/prosecutions for this but I doubt
insurance companies would consider an illegal flight to be insured.

[Agaricus bisporus]

Would you consider it a "small thing" if no C of A was carried?
Or no C of insurance?

Are these things you'd "hope" would attract no fine or prosecution even though you know the book says "shall always be carried"?

[cockney steve]

I would think, that if the sole reason for a flight being declared "illegal" due to the neglect to convey a couple of sheets of A4 paper on said flight, an insurance company would not even attempt to kick 5h1t uphill ,trying to evade liability on that pretext.

As a general rule,there has to be a proven link between the policy-terms violation and the arising of liability.

You have a motor accident, your car has a bald tyre, therefore the car was unroadworthy and so uninsured.....NOT SO!.... UNLESS, for example, you skidded into someone else on a wet/greasy surface.

In the dry, a smooth tyre has a higher grip (compound and construction otherwise identical) than a treaded one...so ,in those circumstances, it could be argued that the impact and damage were lessened because of the bald tyre.

A jobsworth inspector may well try to stop a pilot flying without the paper,but if it was a commercial flight, he could probably be accused of disproportionate response and abuse of authority and possibly be "invited" to a "retraining session"

I'm not even a barrack-room Lawyer, so probably talking :mad:, but my considerable experience with motor-insurance claims would suggest I'm in the ballpark.;)

[Dufo]

Safa manual quotes:

f) Departure delay of an aircraft should be avoided. However, when an inspector discovers an issue which may have a major effect on flight safety or requires further investigation to clarify the issue, a delay may be justified, for example:
... c. A flight crew member cannot produce his/her licence. Clarification must besought from the operator to confirm the flight crew member has a valid licence by requesting, for instance, a copy of the licence to be sent to the inspectors for
verification


So not a major issue but your operator must send/fax/email the copy to the inspectors before you depart.

[Wilton Shagpile]

Thanks for the responses. As I reckoned, probably not a big deal unless somebody chooses to make it so!

[mad_jock]

All bets are off in France mind.

Whats not a problem everywhere else can mean a trip to the local court house and a fine paid before the aircraft is released.

[Natstrackalpha]

My colleague had his ripped off, so he had to call CAA for a new one and the FAA for a new one of those, also he had to have a faxed /emailed cert I forgot which, from the FAA telling everybody he could fly and his licence was this that and the other. The FAA can do it within 24 hours and the JAR ones by the time you have starved to death.

He was also unable to proceed, with the flight, until he had received his licence by fax/email, whatever.

In a lot of places now, they wont let you through the gate as it is increasingly part of the security check.

As far as ramp checks go - it would cause excessive delay whilst somebody sent a copy through the wires.