Background checks for foreign flight students

In My Humble Opinion
1

Where I learned to fly helicopters there were several foreign students. Most were from the UK (one of the school’s owners, and one of the instructors were Irish ex-pats), but there was one from France while I was there. Several flight school ads in the flying mags advertise that they will help foreign students obtain visas so they can come over to train. (It’s significantly cheaper to train in the U.S. Often, it’s cheaper even taking housing and living expenses into account.)

New rules have been announced that will require new foreign studens who wish to attend a U.S. flight school to undergo an “extensive background check”. How will this affect schools that rely on foreign students for a large part of their business?

2

Negatively, I think it’s safe to say. As I understand, the requirement went from requiring background checks for training in 12,500 Lb+ aircraft to all planes, including little Cessnas. If we give the TSA the benefit of the doubt, they’re trying to preempt small car bomb-scale terrorist attacks with small airplanes while also denying potential large-plane terrorists the basic training they might need. In real life, they’re choking up the system with unnecessary background checks and simultaneously discouraging a key portion of many flight schools’ market (foreign students) from even pursuing training. The negative effect for the rest of us is often higher rental costs, and unfortunately some flight schools going out of business.

3

I’m afraid this question amounts to an IMHO question. Manly because it requires so many more questions to be asked an answered before ot can itself be addressed.

I see huge obstacles to performing background checks on foreign students in a fair manner, because of “third party” involvement – the government of the foreign student. Really, how do you check whether Student X has a criminal history? Probably you inquire of their country Y. But then, do you trust what country Y tells you, or the accuracy of their records, or any of a half dozen other things that have nothing at all to do with the individual applicant? I don’t doubt that there will end up being a list of countries from which no students will be admitted.

I see other issues related to such risky students getting into the US for any reason, so I would question as the effectiveness of choosing the doors of flight schools as places for national security gatekeepers. But I’ve already strayed too far into IMHO territory. If this thread moves I’d like to discuss it more.

Oh yes, ny disclaimer is that I have no claim to specific knowledge about immigration, flight training, terrorism, or internal security… or law, domestic or internationel, etc. Really, my ignorance is all-encompassing.

4

In retrospect, I should have put this in IMHO.

While ab initio training is cheaper in the U.S. than in many or most places, it seems to me that it might be quite easy to train elsewhere. On the other hand, it might look suspicious if [insert name of favourite terrorist-supporting country here] suddenly had a lot of people taking flying lessons.

I’m not convinced that light aircraft make successful bombs. Yes, you could load 500 pounds of explosives into a Cessna 172; but why? Loading a rental truck with explosives would attract less attention unless you did the loading inside of a hangar. It would also be less expensive because the training costs would be next to nothing. While the WTC terrorists were highly motivates, intelligent, well-educated people, I think most suicide bombers tend to be less well educated. Once loaded, a rental truck would attract less attention on the roads than a light aircraft would if it were flying in an area where light planes don’t often fly. (Example: When I was flying in L.A. I often flew a helicopter around downtown, but I never saw a Cessna or Beechcraft there.) Light aircraft whose only explosive cargo was the fuel in their tanks have been shown to cause very little damage when they hit buildings.

5

You’re right. (I swear your post wasn’t there when I wrote my last post!)

I’ve e-mailed the mods.

6

I agree that little planes aren’t very capable of causing lots of damage to things on the ground.

Terrorists have egos like everyone else; however I could imagine an appropriately humble, centered and motivated terrorist who could cause enough carnage with a loaded 172 into the bleachers at Anytown High School’s homecoming game to A) scare a lot of people from gathering in public or attending sporting events and 2) make the public very hostile to general aviation. Certainly not as easy as doing it with a car or truck, but audacious enough to create the desired terror; people will forget how low the odds are that they would be really be attacked in a similar way. People are irrational like that. (Naturally a car bomb would only apply to consequence A).

Will more background checks for student pilots improve things from how they are now? Probably not, based on what I’ve seen at airports I’ve flown at recently. I certainly don’t think the scenario above is likely, just possible.

7

I don’t think this is about how dangerous a pilot with evil intent can become. It’s about appearances and politics.

There’s the “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” dynamic going on. It would just look REALLY bad if ANOTHER group of highjackers flew ANOTHER set of planes into ANOTHER set of targets, no matter how big or small or how many casualties.

The pundits say we’re always prepared to fight the previous war over again, rarely the next one.

Johnny, I can’t tell from the OP at what point this requiirement is triggered. I can think of two points at which it might happen. One is of course through the administrative desks of flight schools. But if “flight training” appears on a visa application, maybe the screening could be done through the state department without the involvement of flight schools.

I’m kind of leery of the idea of making training pilots responsible for anything more than whether their student is competent. Can you tell me more about how the licensing proces works? Is it like cars in that you can get private training but to be tested for a license you have to go to the DMV and take the test. Or do pilots need special teaching certificates of their own, and do they actually take on a role in certifying for the government the successful training of the student?

8

Here’s AOPA’s side of it - obviously a bit anti. They make it sound like initially it’s on the flight instructors to ensure that anyone receiving flight training is a US citizen, or if not to notify the TSA, and take a photo of the prospective student for them.

The way the system normally works is the student pays for flight instruction and, prior to receiving a pilot certificate from the FAA, has to pass a computerized “written” test and then an evaluation by either an FAA examiner (free to applicant) or a non-government examiner designated by the FAA (for say a couple hundred bucks). The student’s instructor has to endorse the student’s logbook prior to the examination, basically saying that he or she has found the candidate proficient in the knowledge and skills required for the certificate being sought.

9

The AODA site makes it seem like these rules were slapped together without much thought, which I can well believe.

The relevant requirements are here

I don’t see anything that prevents the training from occurring before a backbround check. Perhaps the license itself might be held up at the other end of the training until such a check is completed. Which would of course make the rule absoltutel useless from a security point of view, as it’s the knowledge and not the license which could make the pilot dangerous. So maybe there’s something more that I’m missing.

10

I got my boyfriend an intro flying lesson for Christmas last year, and was suprised that they didn’t do any kind of background check. They didn’t even check his ID or have him sign a release, IIRC. There didn’t seem to be any mechanism at the flight school to check on anything.

It would seem that flight schools having to do background checks would significantly contribut to their overhead, and that might economically cause them to reject any foreign students out of hand.

11

The flight schools in my neighborhood, as of Oct 20, state that the new TSA regulations require them to ask EVERYONE for ID proving they are either a US citizen or here legally and OK’d for flight training.

This includes people who already have a license and have been customers for years (such as myself)

Since my passport expired 20 years ago and I believe my birth certificate is still in Michigan with my parents, it’s going to be at least a few weeks before I can take any refresher training even at the flight school I earned my license at and have been flying out of for six years as a regular customer. I can still rent and fly, but can receive no training until I dig up my ID.

Nevermind the government has, supposedly, already scrubbed their database of licensed pilots for Bad Guys.

It’s a PITA and an aggravation. And while I don’t have too much problem with the current FBO keeping a copy of my birth certificate, I don’t always trust other, small CFI outfits. I mean, I trust their flying but good flying skills do not always translate into excellent filing and record retention skills.

It’s not the idea of background checks… it the gritty details of the rule. Some bureacrat that couldn’t tell the difference between a J-3 cub and a 747 drew up a one-size-fits-all approach, pronounced it good, and now has no clue about the aggravation this has caused.

It will not only discourage foreign students (and I think the intent of many new and proposed rules is to actually END the training of foreign flight students in the US), it’s going to bite at least a little into the citizen flight training. Since last Wednesday I think there has been all of four hours of flight training at the FBO, when usually there’s 6 to 10 hours a day, because everyone is scrambling to find the passport or the birth certificate (neither document being something required on a daily basis in the US, and therefore not always readily at hand). Some folks just won’t bother, already discouraged by rising prices, no fly zones, and other crap for whom this is the final straw.

And really, how much safer are you if every time I take a flight review or an hour of the Wings program at the same FBO with the same CFI I have to display a document proving once again I am a US citizen? It’s not like people go out on a weekend and casually change their citizenship. Besides which, already having a license, I can fly right now and cause mayhem, so it’s not like this would stop a terrorist who already has a pilot’s license. It might make it difficult to get more training, but it won’t erase the knowledge already in someone’s head.

12

Avweb published news of an amendment to the TSA’s policy. Looks like citizenship must be established and logged by the CFI.

I get the feeling Avweb’s a bit anti too.