Expired medical and 120 days since a night landing
Captain M holds a Part-FCL CPL(A) with an instrument rating and a valid MEP(land) class rating, and flies a single-pilot King Air 200 for an AOC holder in an EU member state. Her Class 1 medical certificate expired on 30 April. Her renewal appointment with the AME is on 12 May; between those dates she holds no medical certificate at all. Today is 3 May. At 18:40 the dispatcher telephones to ask her to command a night charter departing at 21:30 with six passengers on a sector of 1 h 40 min, because the only other available captain is already rostered. Her logbook shows four take-offs and four landings within the preceding 90 days, all in daylight; her last night take-off and landing were 120 days ago. She completed her King Air operator proficiency check five months ago and the aircraft is approved for single-pilot commercial operations. The dispatcher suggests she could 'ride as co-pilot with the other captain' or 'take the flight anyway and sort the medical out on Monday'.
1. May Captain M act as commander of this flight? Give the reasoning for each requirement she fails.
Read the worked answer
No. Two independent prohibitions apply, and either on its own is decisive.
Medical certificate. Under Part-MED (MED.A.020) the privileges of a licence may be exercised only while the holder has a valid medical certificate appropriate to those privileges. Her Class 1 certificate expired on 30 April and she holds none today. This is not a currency item that can be made good by experience or by a renewal examination later; the certificate must be valid on the day of the flight. Flying would breach the national implementing rules and would leave the flight without valid medical cover, with consequences for the operator's insurance. The dates matter: expiry on 30 April means 1 May onwards is uninsured territory whatever the AME appointment on 12 May says.
Night recency. FCL.060 provides that a pilot may not act as PIC or co-pilot of an aircraft carrying passengers in commercial air transport unless, within the preceding 90 days, they have made at least three take-offs and three landings as pilot flying in an aircraft of the same type or class (or an approved simulator). It adds that a pilot may not act as PIC at night carrying passengers unless, within the preceding 90 days, they have made at least one take-off and one landing at night. She satisfies the three daylight take-offs and landings but not the night element: her last night take-off and landing were 120 days ago.
'Sort it out on Monday' is not available. The medical condition attaches to the licence, so it bars co-pilot duties as well as command.
2. The dispatcher proposes that she occupy the right-hand seat while the other captain commands. Can the flight be dispatched, and what must be verified before it is?
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The flight can go only with a crew that satisfies every requirement independently, and Captain M cannot occupy a pilot seat.
Checks to be made on the other captain before dispatch:
- Valid licence with the King Air type/class rating, and a valid Class 1 medical certificate.
- Recency under FCL.060: three take-offs and three landings in the same type within the preceding 90 days, plus at least one take-off and one landing at night within the preceding 90 days for a night flight carrying passengers.
- Operator proficiency check and recurrent training/checking valid under the operator's ORO.FC.230 programme, plus a valid line check where required.
- The operator's single-pilot approval, the MEL status of the aircraft and the route/airfield qualifications for the destination.
If all of that is satisfied, the flight may be dispatched with that captain as commander. Captain M may not sit in a control seat: her medical certificate is invalid, so no licence privilege may be exercised, and a person in a control seat of a commercial passenger flight without a valid medical creates licensing and insurance problems rather than solving them. If she travels at all, it is as a passenger.
The duty to verify rests jointly on the operator, through its dispatch and record system, and on the commander, who must satisfy themselves before flight that the crew are licensed, medically fit and current. Pressure of rostering is not a defence.
3. A later audit shows Captain M signed a logbook entry for a flight she did not operate. What are the record-keeping obligations and the likely consequences?
Read the worked answer
The logbook is a legal record and the entry must be true. Signing for a flight one did not operate corrupts the whole verification chain - recency, flight and duty time limitations, maintenance and defect reporting, and, after an occurrence, the evidential trail used by the investigation.
Obligations on the operator:
- Keep crew records - licences, medical certificates, training and checking, flight and duty times - and make them available to the competent authority on request (the record-keeping requirements of ORO.GEN.220 and ORO.MLR.115 under Regulation (EU) No 965/2012).
- Report to the competent authority any event affecting the validity of a licence or the competence of a crew member, and remove the individual from flying duties pending resolution.
Consequences for the individual:
- The licensing authority that issued the licence under Regulation (EU) No 1178/2011 may suspend, limit or revoke it where the holder has falsified records or is not fit to exercise the privileges.
- National criminal law on forgery or false entries may apply, quite apart from any aviation sanction.
- A false entry can also invalidate an insurance claim arising from the flight and will be treated as an aggravating factor in any enforcement action.
The command answer is blunt: never sign for a flight you did not operate, and never fly without a valid medical certificate - the fact that the schedule, the passengers or the company are inconvenienced is not a lawful excuse.