Editor’s Notebook
by Editor Matt Thurber, Aviation Maintenance Technology Magazine
Devaluation

Once again, the aircraft mechanic is the unwanted stepchild of the aviation industry. I’m referring to the deplorable circumstances surrounding the conviction of Anthony St. George and George Allen for allowing Airframe & Powerplant mechanic applicants to cheat on their oral and practical examinations.

Federal District judge Kendall Sharp sentenced St. George to 30 months and Allen to 10 months in federal prison. The FAA tried to get Sharp to order the defendants to reimburse the $2 million that the FAA estimates it’s going to pay to retest the 1,800 mechanics who were helped to cheat. Of the 1,800, 725 were military mechanics who wanted their A&P licenses.

While it’s nice of the FAA to try to get back some of the money that this situation is going to cost the taxpayer, that is a minor point in this saga.
It turns out that the FAA had plenty of chances to learn about the St. George Aviation situation well before it turned into 1,800 questionably certified mechanics.

The first opportunity came when the FAA inspector who monitored St. George Aviation failed to do his duty. Inspector Jesse Barrington had the job of monitoring St. George Aviation but obviously neglected that duty. How do we know this? Barrington went to work for St. George. He was also indicted for fraud and conspiracy in the St. George case, but was later acquitted. "If Barrington had done his job," said prosecutor Kevin Whitmore," he would never have been indicted. He created this environment of lax inspection."
The second opportunity to put the kibosh on St. George was actually multiple opportunities. I spoke with an FAA-designated mechanic examiner to learn more about the practical exam process. It’s been many years since I experienced the dreaded event and I have dim memories of what actually occurred, although I do recall more than a few drops of sweat.

The DME explained that the results of every examination must be sent to an inspector at the local FAA Flight Standards District Office. From there, the test results are forwarded to the Airman Certification Branch, AFS-600, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Now let’s do the math. St. George Aviation certified 1,800 mechanics in four years, according to people involved in this case. That averages to 1.2 mechanics certified per day, seven days a week, or 1.7 per day if you allow St. George et al to take a couple days off every week.
The A&P oral and practical exam takes at least one day. Many mechanics have endured tests lasting longer than one day. A good friend of mine thought he had been hired by one DME, who put him to work in his shop as a way to demonstrate his knowledge and skills.

The DME I queried brought up a good point, and that is that many of these applicants probably scheduled their tests on weekends, when it is most convenient for them. After stamping the licenses of a bunch of applicants and sending the pile of paperwork to the FSDO inspector, the DME wondered, wouldn’t the sheer volume of licenses issued catch the attention of someone at the FAA? And then the paperwork gets forwarded to Oke City, where someone else with a slight bit of curiosity ought to have questioned the volume generated by St. George. "Someone in the system dropped the ball," the DME said.

It’s a shame that the St. George situation got so far out of hand that the FAA is now faced with recertifying 1,800 mechanics. I’m disappointed in the FAA for allowing this to happen. Why did we have to wait to hear about this from the federal prosecutor? Surely FAA must have had some enforcement proceedings pending against St. George Aviation, but if so, we never heard word one about such action.

Putting aside the FAA’s lack of prompt and noticeable action in this case, what bothers me even more is that 1,800 people took the easy way out. In many cases, they avoided their excellent local DMEs and traveled hundreds and thousands of miles to St. George’s Sanford, Florida office for the effortless, in some cases, five-minute exam.

The 1,800 wannabe mechanics are paying for their mistake and will do so for a long time. Knowledgeable employers are going to ask about the provenance of those 1,800 mechanics’ licenses and think twice about hiring people who have shown a willingness to cut corners.
Anthony St. George and George Allen are also paying a price. They are out of business and going directly to jail.

I hope that one positive benefit of this situation is that the FAA decides to review and tighten up the A&P practical test standards. Right now, the standards are somewhat arbitrary. The FAA gives a list of suggested practical exam projects to the DME, who has to decide which ones to assign to the applicant. The DME then judges the student’s performance based on three levels of capability, the criteria for which are not exactly spelled out in great detail.

Surprisingly, there is nothing in the A&P practical testing process remotely like the excellent and clearly delineated practical test standards that the FAA publishes for pilots. Pilots know exactly what to expect on their tests, while to mechanics, the test is a bit of a crapshoot, and highly dependent on the judgement and character of the DME.

The worst part of this quality control nightmare is the effect on the aviation industry, which has suffered, in the public’s and the industry’s eyes, a devaluation of the worth of the A&P license.