The Swedish pilot who flew commercial airliners for 13 years with a fake licence said he never put passengers at risk.
Thomas Salme was caught last month as he was about to pilot a Boeing 737 from Amsterdam Shiphol to Ankara in Turkey.
He was arrested on suspicion of holding a fake pilot licence after a tip-off to Dutch authorities.
The 41-year-old had accumulated 10,000 unlicenced hours in the air.
He admitted he doctored his expired pilot’s licence and was fined €2000 ($2600) and banned from flying for a year.
Judges in Amsterdam rejected prosecution pleas for a custodial sentence last month and even praised his safety record.
“The moral point of view is that I feel ashamed that I did lie but I didn’t ever feel, not once, feel that I put passengers in an unsafe position,” Mr Salme told Sky News.
Mr Salme was working as a maintenance engineer for airline SAS when a friend let him ‘fly’ the firm’s full-scale flight simulator while it was not being used, The Sun reported.
“I got the crackpot idea to apply as a co-pilot at a real airline so I made myself a Swedish flying permit with a logo out of regular white paper.
“It was a fantasy creation. It wasn’t laminated and looked like something I’d made ay home.
“It was surprisingly easy.”
Mr Salme is now writing a book about his experiences but added that no one could copy his behaviour as new checks mean a fake licence would be spotted.
Mr Salme is being compared to Frank Abagnale, the American who conned people into thinking he was a pilot.
Leonardo DiCaprio starred in the film Catch Me If You Can that told his story but Mr Salme denied the two men are similar.
“I feel my name is all over the world, my punishment is more than €2000,” he said.
Source: news.com.au
By: ATR72 - 20th May 2010 at 11:23
They get promoted within the NHS.
How many fake doctors have there been over time? What happens to them?
By: Arabella-Cox - 19th May 2010 at 19:37
How many fake doctors have there been over time? What happens to them?
By: ATR72 - 19th May 2010 at 16:59
Maybe the fake ones are better than the real ones.:p
By: wl745 - 19th May 2010 at 13:43
fakes
I cannot recall any fake pilots turning up after crash investigations?
By: ATR72 - 19th May 2010 at 12:56
How many of us non pilots have shared the same fantasy? The question has to be asked, how many pilots in the world are flying at the moment with fake I.D.?
By: Bmused55 - 19th May 2010 at 09:48
Ok, he shouldn’t have done it and he should have been spotted earlier, but I do not see anything particularly dangerous about what he did. As it has been said, once in the job everything was by the book. He had obviously been trained up to CPL standard which is not too far fetched from ATPL/f. So he was an able pilot anyway.
OK, the license was expired, but how much would he realy have been missing that would not have been re-learned in the simulator and during type rating?
I think the fine and ban is justified and in proportion to his deed.
By: swerve - 19th May 2010 at 09:23
According to the stuff floating around out there he had a CPL, but it lapsed. He then got some free simulator time (unofficial, when a simulator was not being used) while working for an airline in a ground job. He forged an ATPL, & used that to get a co-pilots job. Everything he’s done since (type certifications, etc.) has been by the book, & he’s accumulated 10000 incident-free flying hours, as co-pilot & captain. He’s reported to be a former Swedish air force pilot.
Someone on PPRUNE claims to have flown alongside him, & says he’s a good pilot. Someone else reckons to know him, & professes to be shocked. He’d always thought of him as a good pilot. Another claims he was a mediocre pilot & an irritating prat.
He lived in Milan, & seems to have been rumbled – or at least suspected – in Italy 4 years ago. There’s a 2006 thread on the Italian bit of PPRUNE which seems to be about him. No name, but the details (Swedish, CPL with fake ATPL, had worked for Air One, etc.) fit like a glove.
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May 19, 2010 at 2:04 am