"Deadstick" wrote in
oups.com:

I once witnessed an FBO owner hand over the keys to an airplane to a
pilot who she had never met, had never flown with and had not received
any type of checkout from the FBO's CFI. The only thing he did was
flash his ATP certificate at this FBO owner and she handed him keys.
There was no attempt to verify that he was actually a pilot let alone
verify that he was proficient at flying the aircraft he was allowed to
use.

I've seen many cases where renters and/or CFIs crashed aircraft
because they were flying under conditions or circumstances that they
should NOT have been flying in. Some FBOs allow people who are un-
qualified to hand out keys or they use systems to control key access
that don't allow for any pre-screening.

I'm not saying the FBO should take 100% responsibility for the pilot's
actions, but there ARE occasions when a prudent FBO could stop an
accident before it happens by not dispatching the aircraft.

I only slightly disagree with the above statement. (Specifically, I don't
think it's appropriate for FBOs to make marginal decisions for students.)
But in this case it seems appropriate for the flight school to have
dispatched this plane to their student, and there could have been no way
for the counter person to determine that this pilot had any intention of
breaching the trust that he had built with the FBO in the past by leaving
without the instructor or using their plane as a weapon.

If the guy's been training there for 4 months, I don't think it's negligent
to give him keys to a plane...