Legal action against the CAA and examiner
 

I took a CPL skills test, and failed it as the examiner said i flew the flight with the wrong QNH set, the examiner said i had 1023 set when i should have had 1024 set! I appeal the result with the CAA and got a free Re-test (which I passed!) my appeal was successfully because I argued that the millibars are so small, depending where you sit in the cockpit it can look like you have different QNH's set.

The problem is the original fail still stands as the CAA can not alter the result of the test (which i am so Pis*** of about!).

So 2 months ago I began Civil proceedings against the CAA and a separate case against the examiner himself, claiming re-reimbursable for the Aircraft hire for the 2 test, Loss of earnings and Defamation of Character.

My sister is a Barrister, so I don't have to worry about legal fees so i think it is worth perusing.

Just over a month ago i sent my license to the CAA to have my IR added to it (36 days today) and they have not sent it back! i keep phone them an all they say is that it is with a Licensing officer! and that it is being processed!

Anyone recently applied for a CPL/IR who can tell me how long it is currently taking? as i think they just taking there time because i'm suing them!

I am more interested in if you set 1023 or 1024?

Pretty sure you do not dare to reply this honestly!:ugh:

I am not a legal expert, but if you want take that approach, it could easily be reversed against you, for defamation of character of your examiner. If he insists he was correct, it will be his word against your word!

The CAA gave you a freebie, due to your argument on a technicality where you most likely did a mistake, do you really want to keep the arguments going with the CAA?

Unless the examiner has a bad history, it is credible to believe the examiner due to passed history was correct in his assessment, however you have been lucky and got something out of your appeal!

Doubt it will come to much, I might be wrong, however I would have tried other options before starting legal proceedings!
Sometimes a little conversation will get you further, talking with the right people!

Good grief.

Failure to set the right QNH, even by 1mb is a fail, but CAA were pretty good about offering a free-re-test.

Get over yourself, and get over that attitude of blame and entitlement which will render you far more unemployable than a failed first CPL skill test. If I were an airline employer I'd employ somebody with a successful re-test, but not somebody prepared to sue the authority over the first failure.

Regarding the IR, it's just totally separate, but if you are known to be prepared to act as an arse in this way, I wouldn't be surprised if they're taking extra time to make sure everything is absolutely in order. You probably brought that on yourself.

G

So what are you going to do when (if) you get a job at an airline with a strict training dept and then fail your LPC/OPC, sue them for loss of duty pay?
A lot of us got partials/retests and just sucked it up, found the money and did it again.
As for legal fees, what if you lose, thought about that?
Now go away and use the time you will be waiting for this to come to fruition to learn how to spell and construct a sentence properly.

The poster wasn't actually saying they did have the wrong QNH set just that the examinor thought they had it set wrong with parallax error.

More to the point why after 5 mins did the examinor didn't note the wrong QNH and then get the person to set the correct one is strange. If they then reset the correct one and continued on there wouldn't be grounds for appeal. By not saying anything it gets into two people with different opinions and nothing to prove things either way.


Sensible sueing them I am in two minds about.

The caa interpretation of the rules has become more and more bullish. The IACO IR recognition for exams validility is point in case.

In one way I think it is good that pilots are standing up to them.

The other side of the coin is that this isn't the case that would do much good in the grand scale of things for all pilots. If the OP wins or looses. Its just costs are going to get fed back into the fees structure.

But then again I think its wrong if they are trying to punish by witholding a rating (if in fact they are) because of the court case about the CPL issue. To be honest in my mind its quite a stupid thing to do as it can be used against them in the primary case with possible damages awarded if it all goes through in the OP's favour.

From my understanding, the examiner made a mistake by not saying anything or parallax error, the CAA have obviously agreed this.

So IMO, the first test shouldn't count on your record, you failed but unfairly. That's like sitting an ATPL exam and passing because you cheated, it wouldn't count because you passed but unfairly. Or failing an ATPL exam because every question wasn't on the syllabus, you failed but unfairly. The CAA would probably do a re-sit, well they should.

I hope you win the case, thanks for standing up for pilots. No way should they first exam count on your record, especially when some employers use it as a filter. I've heard stories of people lying saying they passed everything first time and their employer was none the wiser. Not sure if I'd do that though.

Flippin hell CM talk about opening a can of worms for yourself, I think that you have a lot to learn in this game, that's if the CAA will give you the opportunity, I think your license application could be sitting on the Licensing Officer's desk for a while, at least until you come to an amicable outcome with the CAA ie: when you drop your case against them.

I am not saying that you are wrong but sometimes it's better to say to the examiner or the instructor the 3 magical letters of the alphabet: OIC and accept the injustice even if you know that they are wrong and just move on.

You will come across these types more than once in your career (fewer these days luckily) and they can ruin your career so as much as it hurts take it on the chin.

This industry is very small and names often get mentioned whether it's in a crew room, flightdeck or in a bar.
As my first ever chief pilot once said to me: "don't piss anyone on the way up because you will meet them on the way down!"

Do what you will with my advice.

Good luck

Good luck with the job hunting...... and keeping it! And don't forget to mention that your sister is a barrister!!!!!! :rolleyes:

If the Examiner was indeed wrong then absolutely yes you have grounds for appeal. The only 2 onboard however were you and the examiner so proving who was right and who was wrong will be nigh on impossible I would imagine. Anyhows, processing time at Gatwick is currently 2 to 3 weeks for licenses. It should be 10 working days(as advertised) but things seem to be taking a bit longer. Im told Wednesdays are now staff training days for EASA changeover so processing is now down to 4 days per week.

It just gets worse..
 

... another almost illiterate 20-something who thinks he's the mutt's nuts and can take-on the whole world...

Best case of career suicide I've seen in a long time :ugh:

I'm sure your sister told you that in order to succeed in trial you will have to prove in the balance of probabilities that you were correct and the examiner was wrong. Not easy when it's your word against his, especially given that it's the word of a newly qualified CPL vs the word of a (presumably) hugely experienced examiner.

PS. My licence was received by the CAA for the addition of an IR on the 27th Feb. I'm still waiting for it back too, despite not suing the CAA ;)

Says it all.

As an ex-IRE, I would fail anyone who used the incorrect altimeter setting - it is totally unprofessional.

An experienced examiner consistently misreading an altimeter subscale when a low hour pilot got it right?

A court deciding that the CAA is setting too high standards in assessing commercial pilots?

Sorry, I'm struggling with both concepts. Could somebody explain them to me?

G

Any LHS guys want to fly with this chap in the RHS?

Careful chaps and chappesses, he might set his sister on you to sue for defamation!

He would more than likely be fine. In fact if they did win the case there would be more than a few Chief Pilots quite taken with someone that got one over on the CAA. Especially if they had just been reamed for a load of petty stuff in a flight ops inspection.

There are folk on here that come across as aggressive and hard which I know are actually quite nice people to fly with, with the majority of pilots who arn't talent limited. I believe the late 411A was one of these.

And there are posters who come across quiet reasonable but when you get them into a cockpit they turn into a bullying tyrant. Ie they can talk a good game but never quite put it into practise.

At least the poster is willing to stick up for what they think is right. If they are then not willing to change there views with the benefit of additional information from those with more experence than themselves that then shows a different character trait. Which to be honest is a more annoying atribute of never admitting that the person is wrong or talking ****e in the face of compleling evidence.

And genghis next time you are up and you have an alt on the RHS as well as the LHS have a look at how much the error is in a smaller single then imagine what it would be like in a wider twin. One mb is less than the allowable error between the two on your instrument checks. I have had FO's half way through (and I have done the same) an approach reset the QNH when I had done a cross check and it looked fine. I have also said "can you check your QNH" when it didn't look right but it turned out to be set properly, and its been said to me as well and its been wrong :}

The examinor was a bit daft for only putting that down as the sole reason for failure. Personally I would have added another couple of things which you couldn't have argued with such as unstable approach or they are bound to have stepped outside the agreeded speeds at some point. In any case I would have let them fly for five mins after setting the QNH and then asked them what the QNH was set at. I think my EXAM callsign did that in my IR but its been that long ago. But the altimeters on G-REAT were the old multi layered using disks for above 100 and I could quite imagine that you couldn't see it.

This is the benefit/pitfall of anonymity.

There is probably more to this than meets the eye - start of flight sloppy setting but how many ASRs do you fly through at test? I entered five, not to mention QNE changes over the MATZ and local changes overhead airfields. Being tall I always contort myself to ensure parallax error isn't an issue for my purposes, let alone that of the examiner.

To the OP - whatever happens, you should frame the letter from the CAA giving you a test gratis and hang it in the khazi! mad_jock has a point there.

Does your sister do medical negligence work? :)

This thread is in the Instructor and Examiner forum, the irony does not escape me:
http://www.pprune.org/flying-instruc...ck-airman.html

If you're right you're right and you need to fight it.
Don Quichote comes to mind as these kinds of organizations tend to close rank if one of their brethren gets in hot water.
Becoming an examiner is pretty much another result of the nepotism which is rampant in these types of good-ol-boy networks.

1 millibar is an 8 meter difference which is well within the error range of an analogue altimeter specified for IFR flight which is 75 feet or 25 meters.
If and if the altimeter was set 1mbar off that should have been a debrief item not a fail item, that is ridiculous.

Question for the original poster:
Are you sure this is the only item or were you skating along the edges of tolerances the entire flight and this was the only thing the examiner could hang his hat on? Pushing his buttons the entire flight?
They are supposed to be above that but alas they are human.

Totally uncalled for.

As you say you can get +-1mb with seat height thats why they have the two balls to set your eye line on cat II/III aircraft. Sitting in front of the instrument. How the bloke in the RHS is meant to spot 1 mb apart from asking what you have set it at I don't know.

FYI ASR generally is known as "air safety report" in commercial circles. My first reading was 5 air safety reports in the space of one test that must have been a hum dinger of a flight.

Thanks for all your reply's and advice guys, I might be fighting a loosing battle but i will always stand up for myself, and i will never back down from a fight whether it is a fight in the pub or in the courts.

To be honest it was not just the point that me failed me over a little thing like the QNH.

I did my IR with Kerry Booth, and if I had done my CPL with him and he had failed me chances are I would have just taken it on the chin, and let the whole thing drop, because he explains everything in great details, and his de-briefs are great and he comes across as a just an all round nice person.

But when I did my CPL the examiner firstly let me fly the whole flight when there was no need to if i had already failed which cost me money and landing fees then when we landed i met him inside an he just said "Sorry you failed you had the wrong QNH set"

And my instructor was not around as he was on a flight and he didn't even bother to wait around for my instructor to get back for a de-brief, he just left! not before saying "your flying was excellent there is no need for further training it's just one of those things"

When my instructor got back he had to phone the examiner to get a de-brief of him.

I feel really hard done by and i can't just let this go!