It Flew In, It'll Fly Out

You may have heard the phrase, "It flew in, it'll fly out" on the hangar floor before. I have heard it several times, usually in jest when a major defect was found during aircraft inspection. But a New Zealand pilot took this phrase to a whole new level. The New Zealand Herald reported today that a pilot was fined $10,000 after putting a cracked component back on a plane. The pilot, Paul Ensor, is the owner of Island Air Charters. Last July, an aircraft engineer (mechanic) was inspecting the company's Cessna 210 when he found a crack on the nose landing gear. The gear was sent off for repair, but the engineer working on the gear could not repair it and sent the defective part back to Island Air Charters. When the gear arrived back at the facility, Ensor (who is not an engineer) decided that the landing gear was not damaged and put the landing gear back on the aircraft himself, flying the aircraft 18 times and carrying 80 passengers with the cracked gear. The CAA suspended Ensor's pilot's certificate. The court sentenced him to a maximum 12 months prison or $10,000. The court also ordered that he not fly for 6 months. They say that the person that represents himself in a court of law has an idiot for an attorney. I guess this pilot, who performed his own maintenance, has an idiot for a mechanic. You can read the full story here. Thanks for reading.