Here Are the Hazardous Attitudes That Ground Pilots

Those who knowingly break the rules bring about hard choices for instructors to face.

Meg Godlewski

Tuesday, January 27, 2026 at 09:29 AM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Travis Tingle

ASA’s ‘Flight Instructor Oral Exam Guide’ helps you prepare for the check ride and beyond. [Credit: iStock]

Key Takeaways:

A flight school identified unauthorized after-hours flights, leading to a low-time CFI being caught and displaying "hazardous attitudes" (anti-authority, macho, invulnerable) regarding rule-breaking.
The article details a pilot candidate whose certificates were pulled by the FAA for multiple infractions, requiring a "709 ride" reexamination, yet he denied wrongdoing and exhibited a poor attitude.
Both incidents highlight the significant risks posed by pilots who willfully disregard aviation regulations, refuse accountability, and challenge the integrity and safety of the flight community and instructors.

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The numbers—specifically the Hobbs and the Tach—were not adding up.

The school used dispatch software that kept track of the hours flown so that oil changes and required inspections were not overflown. There was a 0.8 hour discrepancy in the Hobbs number of one of the planes, then a week or so later another aircraft had a 1.2 hour discrepancy. The discrepancies were found first thing in the morning by student pilots during their preflight inspections, leading the flight school to deduce the flights had happened after hours.