Busted airspace

[cspeth]

At my flight school we had a solo student pilot bust a class Charlie airspace on a VFR cross country. The student did not call tower nor was receiving flight following. The student claims they dropped in altitude because of clouds and that just so happened to break through the airspace. The student has a g1000 and still had no idea what they did wrong until landing back at their home airport.
The student only got a slap on the wrist, while the instructor was thrown under the bus and might lose his CFI. Is this fair the instructor wasn't even in the plane? or is this just how the FAA works?

[dagowly]

You sure he bust class C?

[Jetblu]

I could be wrong but I was under the impression a CFI was responsible for the student pilot. Are you sure it was Class C airspace?

[rnzoli]

CFIs carry a lot of responsibilities. My unlucky CFI always paid for my mistakes, when I was his student, but we are still great friends. :ok:

[maxred]

School possibly covering its ass. Is it fair??? Doubt it. The G1000 cockpit possibly takes more time to fully understand, than the PPL course. The student should really have known where he was with good old fashioned map, and other aids. GPS reliance, particularly with airspace, is a gotcha.....

[Gertrude the Wombat]

The G1000 cockpit possibly takes more time to fully understand, than the PPL course.
The one I fly is always warning me that I'm just about to enter controlled airspace, so I simply ignore the warnings.

(Hint: there aren't very many places in the south of England where you aren't going to end up in CAS / MATZ / whatever if you keep going in a straight line for ten minutes.)

[ChickenHouse]

US? Lucky country, in other the CFI would not loose CFI, but all down to PPL...