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

Different airports can be named for, in, or near the same city, and this can be confusing for pilots. [Credit: iStock]

Key Takeaways:

A flight school identified unauthorized after-hours flights through Hobbs/Tach discrepancies, ultimately catching a CFI who demonstrated "hazardous attitudes" by knowingly violating dispatch procedures.
Another pilot, undergoing an FAA reexamination (709 ride) for multiple rule infractions, displayed an anti-authority attitude and struggled with fundamental aviation knowledge, leading CFIs to refuse endorsement.
The article emphasizes the prevalence of pilots with hazardous attitudes who knowingly break aviation rules, risking their careers and safety, and the importance for other aviators not to enable such dangerous behavior.

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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.