Flying school loses my PPL examination records - what to do?

[asheikh]

Hi all,

I had been flying at Cardiff Aeros from March 2012 until May 2013. While I was there, I completed all my exams (paid for and passed!!) which they told me they had kept a record of in a file....fast forwarding....I am now in London, finishing the last few hours of Nav before I have to leave back to my country on the 27th of September. I emailed them to request my exam records and they tell me they only have it for 4/7 exams i did. Like WHAT!!!

I called them up had a chat and the personal working there now claims, that is all what they have record of and the personal who worked there when I did my exams have left the organization (this happened today).

I am completely stressed out! I neither have the money nor the time to make up with any of this bull****. Even if it was possible, I wouldn't do it cause it was their responsibility to manage the records. I have no idea what to do and am all panicked! I was infact planning to go to Spain next week for a quick sunny week of flying to get my PPL before I go back to the middle east....i guess that's not happening now!

Any suggestions/advice would be much appreciated.

Abdulla Sheikh.

[worrab]

Hmm. As I understand it, training organisations don't tell the CAA of exam results until the initial application for a licence - so you will have to try and get the results from the school, or retake the exams.

The first thing to do is perhaps to email them the dates when you took the exams - can you find details of the payments? It would be interesting to know what records they have kept - you will need them for verification of your flying training in any case.

Can you remember who your FI was? I wonder whether (s)he may have some record?

The comment "I wouldn't do it cause it was their responsibility to manage the records" is I hope a throw away one. Without exams there is no PPL. It would be a shame to throw all your training away for the cost of resitting a few exams.

If they can't recover the records I can't really see an alternative to resitting the missing papers which is complex in a couple of ways. I think you only have 18 months from sitting the first to the last exam and you're going to be up against the wall on that.

The second minor complexity is that you are in the transition period between the old 7-exam and the current 9-exam environment and you may have to take a larger number of exams than the number that are missing. There is also the small issue of the number of sittings - but any competent training organisation will know how to handle these things.

Good luck!

[Level Attitude]

I wouldn't do it cause it was their responsibility to manage the records.

I have some sympathy for your predicament, but not full sympathy, as given the length of time since you moved Flying Schools you should have sorted this out long ago. (I put this in mainly as a warning to other students).

To be valid all exams must be passed within an 18 month time frame so, if it is your earlier exams that are missing then you would only need to 'resit' those. If it is the later ones then the complete set would need to be sat again.

If you did in fact pass the full set of seven exams then this pass will be valid for two years from the date of the last exam (until May 2015) for Licence Issue - why did you wait until two weeks before your own deadline to follow this up?

Especially as you approached the end of your Flying Training, did your current school not keep pressing you for your exam results?

An Examiner may not conduct your Test unless you can prove that you have completed everything that is required for Licence Issue, and your Flying School needs to be able to sign a form stating that you have completed all required training (both theoretical and practical).

Your old Flying School may have arranged for you to sit, and to invigilate, your exams but it will be one individual approved Ground Examiner who will have marked your papers. They are required to keep records of exams they have marked for at least three years.

Ask the school who it was who marked your papers - you may need to provide dates and subjects - and contact them direct for your results.

Results used to be recorded on YOUR PPL application form (why didn't you take this with you when you moved to London?). Now, with online applications, I am not sure how Ground Examiners record passes for applicants.

I was infact planning to go to Spain next week for a quick sunny week of flying to get my PPL

How would this have worked? A Flying School cannot put a candidate forward for Test unless they can state that all required training has been completed. Would you have taken your London School's records with you?

[asheikh]

Thanks for the comments guys!

@worrab: There were different F1's for different exams and i am not sure which one marked the ones missing...but i have given the current aeros staff the names of the possible F1's and they are getting in touch with them. I dont have as such any record of it...generally i paid for the flying lesson and theory test togather...but ofcourse, its a good idea to check. Thanks

@level attitude: I have given them the names of the different F1's i had written my exams with...they will try and get in touch with them and find out. I hope they have some record of it!

When i left the school, i was told (and so i followed) that all the files will remain at my previous school, until requested by the new school. I really just started training recently and so go in touch with them about my documents recently...i had done some nav at my old school and started at my new school with nav again...so yeah they were pushing for it now.

For Spain i would have taken the signed documents from both my schools with me and continued my training..

[cockney steve]

As you have been advised.... ask for their cooperation to track down the examiner . Presumably it was the school you paid for those exams. tell them that if they are unwilling to assist you by recovering the "missing" passes, you will have to take Court action.

Prepare a Plaint for the cost of any necessary resits, telephone calls , letters, visits you make trying to sort out this matter....then be prepared to pursue them through the small claims procedure ,which I believe you can now do on line.

It is likely that the thought of time and expense of attending a court hearing and the damage to their reputation,is greater than the cost of putting right their bad record-keeping.

You have not helped yourself by allowing this to drift for so long.
to be a good pilot you need to be disciplined and methodical and pay attention to detail.

[keith williams]

I suggest that you go to the CAA website and search for Standards Document 11. This details the requirements for schools conducting PPL Theoretical Knowledge Examinations.

Para 15 of this document states that in the event of a student passing a PPL exam, the Ground Examiner must complete the relevant part of the PPL Application form SRG1105A/H, including the number of the examination paper. The idea is that a full record of all exams passed will gradually be built up. If your school has not done this, they are clearly in breach of the Standards Document.

Sadly the Standards Documents are for guidance only and hence not legally enforceable. But the CAA will undoubtedly take a very dim view of the situation if you were to inform them that your school has failed to maintain your records properly. So if you point out to your school that they are in breach of Standard document 11, this will at least give them some incentive to put a bit more effort into finding your records.

You have not helped yourself by allowing this to drift for so long.

The above comment is true, but it is not your responsibility to ensure that your school is maintaining their records correctly.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

So if you point out to your school that they are in breach of Standard document 11, this will at least give them some incentive to put a bit more effort into finding your records.

Could go from bad to worse though if they are pressured into "finding" the records which are subsequently found to have been written this week ...

[mad_jock]

Wouldn't be the first time or the last.

And to the student they won't care as long as they get the bit of paper which gives them the license.

I have a feeling though it will not have been a ground examiner who conducted the exam.

The FI might have done it and marked it. The sheet left for the examiner to then put into the SRG1105A which may only be done on completion of the course.

[keith williams]

The FI might have done it and marked it. The sheet left for the examiner

I have no doubt that is how things are actually done. The Standards Document permits the use of an FI to invigilate the exam, but specifically states that exam papers must be marked by the Ground Examiner only.

to then put into the SRG1105A which may only be done on completion of the course.

That also probably happens quite frequently. But it defeats the objective of gradually building up a full record.

Sadly some (too many) ground examiners treat this whole subject as simply a boring chore, and are largely unaware of what the Standards Document requires them to do.

Some years ago I was CGI at a school conducting ATPL courses. We were setting up a Foundation degree course which would involve having classes of up to 24 students taking PPL exams. The university required rigorous recording of exams and results, which would be inspected by the external moderator every year.

With 24 students and 7 exams each, the task was clearly going to be pretty demanding. I knew that this would be quite beyond the capacity of the CFI, so I looked into the possibility of one of the ground school instructors (who would not be an FI) becoming the PPL Ground Examiner. The Standards Document stated a requirement for Ground Examiners to hold an FI certificate or else an AOPA Ground Instructors Certificate.

When I asked AOPA when the next Ground Instructor Course would be held, they could not give me a date. When I pressed the matter further AOPA told me that because they had never had any requests for the course, they had never designed one. So despite being specified in the Standards Document, the course and the certificate did not exist. That was in 2007, but I would be surprised in things have changed since then.

[ChickenHouse]

Just to get my head straight, in the UK the school keeps the exam records? That is quite odd. So, you have no authorities overlooking the quality of exam?

[mad_jock]

The caa sets and issues the exam papers to the ground examiners.

They then in theory (see above) give the tests to the students mark and then debrief them, then update the application form and sign off they have passed that particular exam.

What actually happens in my experience is there is a filing cabinet with the exams in locked away which the FI's have access to. They then give the exams and debrief etc and then putt he sheets into the training records.

Then at the end of the students course the boss or local examiner comes in a sits down and transfers everything to the form.

It was only after I had left instructing I learned on here that as an FI I wasn't meant to have access to the full set of PPL exams. Or for that matter mark them even if it was using a grid. Then discuss what the student got wrong with them.

Personally I think the authorities should just admit defeat on this one and authorise the FI's to do the whole lot including the form signatures. And the ground examiner act as a oversight and QA checker of the system being used. Unless they move the PPL exams online there is absolutely nothing they can do about the fact that reality doesn't match the standards document

[xrayalpha]

Just had a student say he had done his microlight exams at an overseas school, but they have no record. And they haven't given him a licence application form (102M) with the relevant bits filled in.

He didn't know any better.

My suggestion:

Print on the front of the exam paper a warning to candidates to get their form filled in and signed immediately after the exam.

In due course, get the results filed online direct to the CAA.

[keith williams]

What actually happens in my experience is there is a filing cabinet with the exams in locked away which the FI's have access to. They then give the exams and debrief etc and then putt he sheets into the training records.

Then at the end of the students course the boss or local examiner comes in a sits down and transfers everything to the form.

You are of course correct MJ, that is exactly what happens in too many schools.

But let's stop and look at this for a moment. Saving lots of bits of paper then transferring lots of bits of data onto the application form at the end of the course, simply converts 9 minor tasks into one larger task, which will often have to be rushed as the student is leaving the school. It also increases the risk of things getting lost along the way. At best it causes delays when students want their application forms when leaving the school ("sorry, you'll have to wait a week or so until I have time to fill in the form") and at worst it results in the problem reported by the OP in this thread.

The whole process is made much easier if an application form with the basic details is raised when the student joins the school, then gradually filled in as the training progresses. Unfortunately this requires a more "grown-up" attitude on the part of those involved. When the weather is good the FIs are out flying, so the paperwork tends to be left to the bad weather days. In effect the recording process then depends upon the weather. This is precisely why I did not want any of the FI's involved in doing the exam records for the Foundation Degree courses.

The compliance with the Standards Documents could be improved, if the CAA inspectors were to devote a little bit more attention to examining the documentation during routine audits. If the inspectors were to insist on seeing the partially completed application forms at every audit, I suspect that the standards would improve fairly quickly.

In due course, get the results filed online direct to the CAA.

Standards Document 11 states that in the event of a candidate failing an exam the ground examiner is to complete the "Examiners Report Theoretical Knowledge Examination", give a copy to the candidate and send a copy to the CAA within 14 days. I wonder how often that actually happens and how often the CAA carry out checks on it.

[mad_jock]

Or the student sits in front of a computer and does the test and the result is shown on the screen.

And any wrong questions a print out is given giving the reference section where the question originates from. The student can then take it to the FI if further info is required.

As such a ground examiner is not involved and there is no requirement to submit the results as they are already in the FCL system just like how they deal with the ATPL results.

The PPL examinations in the main has been a mockery of the standards document since before I did my PPL 14 years ago. My exams were given and marked by the fat bird on reception who's sum knowledge about aircraft was that's a red one and that's a blue one.

[xrayalpha]

MJ,

Since all one has to do is get the paper out of the filing cabinet, hand it to the candidate, take the answer sheet back, stick a template over it. Say: congrats you've passed, or the resit fee is £xx, and as an examiner you are not allowed to tell the candidate which questions they have passed or failed......

Why isn't the "fat bird" qualified?

[keith williams]

My exams were given and marked by the fat bird on reception who's sum knowledge about aircraft was that's a red one and that's a blue one

And she probably came far closer to complying with the standards document than most "qualified" Ground Examiners or FI's do. Quite simply because she wasn't in a rush to go off flying.

Or the student sits in front of a computer and does the test and the result is shown on the screen.

Meanwhile, back in the real world the CAA have said that they do not intend to extend the online ATPL system to include the PPL. So the best that can be hoped for is that the CAA get the schools to sharpen up their acts.

Why isn't the "fat bird" qualified?

The situation is even dafter than you might think. The fact that Standards Document 11 refers to the AOPA Ground Instructors Certificate, implies that some form of training or qualification is required to be a PPL Ground Instructor. But no such qualification is required to become an ATPL Ground Instructor. If that isn't straight out of "Alice In Wonderland" then I don't know what is.

Getting back to the problem faced by the OP in this thread, if the situation really is as stated, then his school appears to have failed in their duties as specified in Standards Document 11. The fact that many other school also fail on a daily basis does not change this fact. The job of tracking down the missing results should be done by the school. They should then take a close look at Standards Document 11.

[asheikh]

got a call this morning from the school, they have recovered 6/7 of the exam records. Apparently someone miss put them in some one else's file. However, I believe the senior staff (realizing the seriousness) got involved and so things speed up.

in regards to the 7th, as advised yesterday, got in touch with the examiner (found him on FB). he says he does have the record and will send in scans of it soon.

Heading down to cardiff tomorrow and finger crossed, will get all my records!

[mad_jock]

I am sure you will as its public knowledge that the school has been not fulfilling its duty's for maintenance of records.

I would though say that if they do produce the goods delete this thread as a gesture of goodwill.

[keith williams]

That's one option.

But a better one might be to leave it in place to let other schools see how embarrassing things could become if they don't ensure that their record keeping is up to scratch.

Covering things up never brings about improvement.

[BEagle]

This used to infuriate me - it wasn't that hard to raise the PPL application form and include the student's results as soon as he/she had sat an exam.

My predecessor used to allow the secretary to mark the papers, an unacceptable situation which I banned as soon as I took over.

I once told one of our Examiners (who hadn't signed off the student's passes in the PPL application form), that I wouldn't be signing his expenses cheque until he came back in to do so...... That got him moving....

Are there still PPL schools which pay such lip service to the requirements of the Standards Document....

asheikh, best of luck!