He will win. He stated he doesnt give training. Its a shame they assume he
was pilot in command sitting in the right seat. The FAA should have to
reimburse in for the money he spent on his attorney.
"Mortimer Schnerd, RN" wrote in message
...
Pilot claims no blame in July crash

By Andrew Dys
The Herald

http://www.heraldonline.com/local/st...-5022727c.html

The Ohio man who federal officials say was the pilot in a Rock Hill plane
crash claims he is being wrongly blamed for the July accident, which left
two other men dead.
Matthew Sullivan, 24, of Dublin, Ohio, told federal investigators and The
Herald he did not remember the flight or the crash and said he was not the
pilot and wasn't acting as a flight instructor that day. But he did
remember the day leading up to the flight, he said.

"I was strictly a passenger," Sullivan said in an phone interview from
Ohio, where he is recovering from serious injuries received in the crash.

Sullivan was one of three men on board the single-engine plane, which
crashed July 24 in a subdivision off Rawlinson Road, nearly one mile from
the Rock Hill/York County Airport. The others on board, Rock Hill native
Eric Johnson and Ohio dentist Bill Coulman, died.

Johnson was coming to Rock Hill for a Northwestern High School class
reunion, and Coulman owned the plane.

Federal regulators reported that fuel mismanagement by the pilot was
likely responsible for the crash. The mismanagement "resulted in fuel
starvation and subsequent loss of engine power," a National Transportation
Safety Board report states.

The NTSB identifies the pilot as Sullivan, who was sitting in the right
front seat of the plane and was the only one on board rated to fly under
instrument flight rules. The plane flew on instrument flight rules until
changing to visual flight rules four miles from the airport.

Instrument flight rules flying requires a higher licensing level and radio
contact between the plane and airport alerting the airport of the
impending landing, federal officials have said.

But Sullivan said he was invited by Coulman to be a passenger on the
flight. Sullivan said he had known Coulman for about a year but met
Johnson for the first time that morning at the Ohio State Airport in
Columbus.

Sullivan said he did not know he was the only one on board with an
instrument flight rating and was not asked to be a flight instructor. He
said he assumed Johnson had an instrument rating and was in charge.

Coulman presented Johnson, who sat in the left front seat, as an Air Force
veteran and an experienced pilot, he said. "I was picturing a 'Top Gun.'"

The NTSB report describes Johnson and Coulman as "pilot rated passengers."
Another part of the NTSB report describes the two as "passenger" and
"student pilot." FAA records showed Johnson had been a licensed pilot
since 1988.

Sullivan blames Coulman and Johnson.

"Dr. Coulman owned the plane, filed the flight plan and made the decision
as to who would fly the aircraft," Sullivan wrote to the NTSB. "Mr.
Johnson actually flew the plane knowing he did not have the certification
or authority to do so. It would be an injustice to blame me (as an invited
guest) for their errors."

Sullivan said he is a flight instructor by training but was not acting as
one that day for either Johnson or Coulman.

"Matthew does not do for-hire flight instruction," his lawyer, Joe
Coulter, said.

Another lawyer for Sullivan, aviation law specialist Mark McDermott of
Washington, D.C., said the government is making Sullivan a "scapegoat" for
the crash. Both lawyers said Sullivan is being targeted by the federal
government because he is the sole survivor of the crash.

Federal officials declined to respond to the claims of Sullivan and his
legal team.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which has enforcement and pilot
licensing authority, confirmed it investigated Sullivan but took no action
against him. Because there was no action taken, there is nothing for
Sullivan to appeal, Southern region spokesperson Kathleen Bergen said.

NTSB spokesperson Lauren Peduzzi reaffirmed both agencies show that
Sullivan was flying the plane at the time of the accident and that the
other two were passengers. The NTSB, which handles crash investigations,
has closed its case and does not publicly respond to claims like
Sullivan's, Peduzzi said.

Sullivan can appeal the NTSB ruling and is taking the right steps to do so
if he wants to be able to fly in the future, said Mike Hynes, who runs a
Frederick, Okla., aviation consulting business that does investigations
for pilots and their lawyers after crashes. Hynes is a former FAA examiner
with more than 16,000 hours of flight time.

It's not surprising the FAA decided not to cite Sullivan because, with the
other men on board dead, it is hard to prove if he was acting as the
flight instructor, Hynes said.

However, Hynes is not surprised the NTSB ruled Sullivan was the flight
instructor.

"The normal rule of thumb is unless there is very clear evidence he was
not the flight instructor, he would be assumed to be the flight
instructor," Hynes said.

The fuel selector switch is on the left part of the plane where Johnson
was sitting, said both Hynes and Erik Rigler of San Antonio, Texas,
another aviation expert who is a consultant in crashes and investigations.

The pilot in command designation does not mean that person was handling
all the controls, Hynes said, although the right hand seat does have
access to some flight controls.

The left front seat is generally called the pilot's seat, Hynes said.

However, Johnson, in the left front seat, couldn't be considered the pilot
in command if he was not instrument flight plan certified, Hynes said.
Further, only an instrument rated pilot is supposed to be able to file an
instrument flight plan, Hynes said.

The question of whether an on-board flight instructor is responsible comes
up often, Rigler said. A flight instructor himself, Rigler has had those
concerns personally when flying with pilots who don't have his high
ratings.

A legal battle over liability is likely, both Hynes and Rigler said. The
FAA taking no enforcement against Sullivan makes a very strong case
against liability, Rigler said.

Most similar cases end up in civil courts and can take five years or more
to conclude, Hynes said.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE