Arnold Gerald Leto III was arrested last year for illegally flying a private jet to Las Vegas from Los Angeles without a pilot’s license. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 months in jail and a $5,500 fine. What’s even more worrying is he apparently flew charter passengers a number of times as the sole pilot on planes he wasn’t rated to fly or where he was only rated to be second-in-command.
In November 2015, a private jet crash in Akron, Ohio killed nine. An NTSB report said the pilots didn’t follow checklists. It also said the operator hadn’t checked why the pilots had been fired from their previous jobs. “There were a lot of variables that came together in a deadly fashion which led to this tragedy. If I cited them all I would need a couple more pages but in a nutshell the increased risks should have been identified before the aircraft even left the ground,” says Peter Maestrales, a second generation private aviation executive, a pilot and CEO of Airstream Jets, Inc. He adds, “These variables were either overlooked or ignored and the result was a terrible tragedy. Nearly all of the variables that led to the crash would have become insignificant had the crew opted use Akron/Canton Regional Airport instead which is only seven miles away and has ILS approach.”
In 2008 a private jet, chartered from an approved operator by the Government of Mexico, carrying its Interior Minister, crashed killing 16, including nine people on the ground. The investigation found the pilots had limited experience in that plane type and “the flight crew received fraudulent type certifications, they did not receive training and certification forms were missing or unsigned by their flight school.” On approach to the airport, they flew too close behind a larger commercial airliner and got caught in its wake. Their inexperience made recovery more difficult, the report stated.
While you are 10 times more likely to drown in your bathtub than die in a private aviation accident (5,000 deaths per year vs. under 400 according to the most recent statistics I could find), there are issues about pilot sourcing and safety that as an educated private jet user are worth taking your time to look into.
If you own your own jet, your management company is screening and hiring crew. If your company operates private jets, you have a corporate flight department which does the same. Fractional operators like NetJets and Flexjet have their own flight departments. Having flown a number of flights with NetJets and visited their Columbus operations center, one walks away as a layman and passenger being very impressed. It goes to a point their salespeople make that when choosing a private aviation provider, price really shouldn’t be the driving factor. In the website I developed to help consumers find the right private jet card for their needs, we cover over 65 variables, including minimum standards for sourcing pilots, which includes hours flown as well as hours in the plane type for both the pilot in charge (PIC) and first officer (FO).
Previously, as part of this series on jet cards, I wrote about where your private jet comes from. For example, NetJets, JetSuite, Delta Private Jets, VistaJet, WheelsUp, XOJet (in part), Nicholas Air and Flexjet source aircraft from their own fleets they own outright, are part of a fractional fleet they operate or airplanes they manage and operate for owners.
Other jet card sellers go into the charter market to source aircraft. Sentient Jet is one of the most prominent jet card sellers that doesn’t own or operate planes but provides members flights by sourcing jets via the charter market. Andrew Collins, its CEO told me, “Through (our) own safety regulations self-imposed by Sentient’s Independent Safety Advisory Board, which conducts interviews with (airplane) providers’ top management as well as background checks, Sentient has a proprietary data method of capturing both performance-based as well as culture-based information on operators which most firms do not have the time and/or resources to follow. As a result, Sentient only works with the top 20% of all private jet operators.” There are about 2,500 operators in the U.S. that a legally able to offer their planes for passenger charters.
When I asked him, what questions he would tell a friend purchasing a jet card, he reeled more than a half dozen: Do they use a stringently certified network of aircraft? Does the provider exceed all (FAA Part 135) pilot (and) crew expectations or merely just comply? How deep are the relationships that someone may have with an operator if it is an open fleet model vs. a managed fleet? What certification and release standards does the company use? How much data, especially proprietary data, has the company aggregated to provide an information layer on operators, aircraft, and crews to enhance the company’s core flight management and safety procedures and screening? Does the (jet card) provider have a Chief Safety Officer with a deep-rooted knowledge of the Part 135 world (and Part 121 if applicable) along with a deep knowledge and design track record regarding the company’s safety culture, framework, and overall aircraft and operator certification process? How long has the provider been running a Jet Card operation? How long have they had and significantly invested in various proprietary safety, certification, and additional insurance layers?
Christopher Tasca of ProspAir Jet Charter, another jet card seller, wrote back, “As a pilot and aviation professional I cannot put enough emphasis on ‘time in type.’ Of course, you would agree with me a pilot flying with over 10,000 hours total time is a very experienced airman, but how many hours does he or she specifically have in the type of aircraft they will be piloting for you. We require a minimum of 300 (hours) in type. I often give the example of the car rental, compared to your daily driver. When you first get into a car that is rented you are uncomfortable with the controls. You have to adjust the seat height, learn where the blinkers are, etc. There will be a few seconds of confusion, or delay when getting yourself acclimated. We afford zero opportunity for confusion or delay with our time in type requirement. We are accident and incident free.”
Andrew Flaxman, a pilot and director of operations for ExpertJet says consumers need to dig deep. He starts by saying, “If a company is anything but ARGUS Platinum or ISB-AO certified, customers and brokers must rely solely on the operator to report truthful and current information. What good is that?”
However, he says just being certified by a third party isn’t enough. He says you should demand zero incidents, accidents or violations from both the operator and its crew. He says to ask if the operator follows a Safety Management System (SMS) protocol as approved by ISB-AO. He also says to ask about the average retention rate of pilots and employees. “Anything under 2 years should be a red flag,” he says.
Of the third party ratings, Flaxman says the ISB-AO standards are the most rigorous. He says, ISB-AO looks far beyond just basic pilot qualifications, and its approved operators must have rigorous safety procedures and standards in place, including preflight risk assessment. He says to also ask about pilot duty policy and experience flying in mountainous conditions if you are going a ski resort.
Airstream Jets Maestrales adds, “We make it a point to remain very aware of the fact that nearly all aviation incidents can be attributed to human error. As such, much of our focus is on the crews.” He adds, “In my opinion, traditional Part 135 pilots are among the best pilots in the world because every day offers new experiences, new airports, etc. All of which adds tremendous experience in dealing with variables and basically just keeps them sharp. But experience is only part of the equation.”
Maestrales says in several cases walked away from business. In one instance, there was a lucrative 23 city roadshow where there was a need every night for a large Gulfstream type aircraft that allowed smoking. However, the tour’s backers didn’t want to cough up the money for the entire program but wanted to charter segment by segment meaning needing to source multiple planes.
“After only two segments completed, I decided my company needed to walk away from the road show and the profits promised us. Putting a machine like that into motion is an involved process that requires a number of professionals all working and coordinating together. While it is certainly not an impossible thing to do, it was that doing it day in and day out was resulting in a huge increase in pressure and stress on everyone involved including the pilots,” he says, noting, “As a business owner, it is difficult to turn your back on profit, but my father showed me that sometimes it is necessary and in the end the good judgement will be worth it. If you make compromises, eventually you will be compromised.”
Experts also recommend taking the same due diligence with fleet operators. They point to Avantair, which sold shares and operated 56 airplanes before shutting down without notice. Investigations revealed serious maintenance shortcomings. You should take the same approach with your broker if you just charter when needed.
