Fake Pilot flies Passangers for 13 years

[tricky_ab]

This is Thomas Salme, a maintenance engineer who became a Boeing 737 pilot by flying a few nights in a flight simulator and printing a fake airliner pilot license. Amazingly enough, he flew passengers for thirteen years without any incidents.

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2010/05/thumb160x_article-1279083-099e7ed2000005dc-534_233x381_01.jpg

The Guy Who Flew Thousands of Passengers As a Fake Pilot - Thomas Salme - Gizmodo (http://gizmodo.com/5540789/the-guy-who-flew-thousands-of-passengers-as-a-fake-pilot)

The hilarious thing is that by this point he's clearly logged enough hours to qualify to be a real pilot. So I'm guessing as soon as his punishment conditions are up, he'll be back to flying. I'd trust him.

[renegade_ewok]

13 years, no faults... Alright, cool... I'd fly with him.

Its still a funny ass story... I mean, if he is an aerodynamics engineer then he probably knows a good bit already when he started

[5pecialist]

This is a good way for radicals to get around airport security. Just become a pilot :( Ugh...

[lawrenceyang]

i wonder what made him think that he was qualified when he printed that license.

[bardabe]

haha that's pretty cool. all the illegal Hispanics here in Socal should try it. lmao

[ronmcdon]

Article is dead on.
Could have turned out A LOT worse.



Despite putting the lives of thousands at risk, Salme only got fined a couple thousand dollars and was banned from flying for a year. Thinking twice about it, it's kind of reasonable. Despite being crazy enough to pull such a stunt, it's not entirely his fault. After all, how can a company and the flight agencies involved be so absolutely inept? How can they accept a simple printout and put a random guy in the cockpit of a passenger plane without running any background checks? A simple computer search would have probably turned out enough information to stop this from the beginning. I can imagine Frank Abagnale Jr. pulling this stunt in the 60s, but now? There are no excuses.

If anyone needs to be nailed, that's the useless authorities that make us follow all kinds of stupid security procedures to get into an airplane, but can miserably fail to check the identity and qualification of the pilots flying the plane. [Focus]

[!Zar!]

Yeah, who needs to highjack a pane, when you can just photoshop yourself a license.

[BoostSlideWayz]

my friend had every flight simulater that came out for windows and he literally could fly any plane he wanted. so i think the simulaters are good lessons.. he was going to do commercial flights and make a career off of it. but unfortuantly he has a bad record and being in commercial piloting you can not have any kind of criminal back round what so ever

[Gnnr]

Great job omiting the insignificant details once again, Giz;

"The Swede, resident in Milan, had once possessed a Commercial Pilot's Licence (CPL) but this had long since expired, Dutch police said. He subsequently forged an Airline Transport Pilot Licence (ATPL), the highest level of aircraft pilot licence and one which enabled him to fly large passenger planes."

Well. There you go.

[Zachsta]

LOL legit.

[godrifttoday]

my dad owns a cessna 172, and u can fly without a licence if you know how, my dad does have a licence, i dont...but my father has showed me everything!

[S14_Kouki]

13 years, no faults... Alright, cool... I'd fly with him.



Im with you man, 13 years and nothing has happen. Ill fly with him any day.

[ViciousCesar!]

is that Shane Carwin's brother?

[ronmcdon]

Well. There you go.

bottom line is that said pilot didn't have the neccesary qualifications to fly passenger jets.
It does however, add plausibility that he was able to do the job without issue until now.
this isn't some random joe putting out a bogus resume & getting hired.
Ppl's lives are at stake.

Usually I scoff at the media for sensationalizing.
In this case I'm glad it was brought to attention.
Goes to show how vulnerable some of the existing security procedures are.

[azndoc]

And people were really surprised when 9/11 happened too.

[Soup Nazi]

Im with you man, 13 years and nothing has happen. Ill fly with him any day.


Same here......His record is better than most who are legit :ddog:

[Walperstyle]

Whats interesting is there is no jobs in the Airline Industry these days, lol.