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Aviation Compliance / Enforcement Teardown

What the FAA actually asked for.

Six Part 135 enforcement actions since March 2024, the exact record that failed in each one, and an honest account of which ones a records system would have caught. Every case is built from the FAA’s own announcements.

6
actions examined
$1.16M
in proposed fines
0
caused by an accident
Download the full teardown (PDF)Read the scorecard first

The FAA is not investigating. It is reading.

Every case here was built out of the operator’s own files. Not one of the six began with a crash. The agency asked for a record, and the record did not support the flight that had already happened.

So this is not a list of violations. For each case it names the specific record that failed, and then the number that actually matters: how long the condition ran before anybody noticed.

32 flights. 83 flights. 315 flights. 170 flights. Five years. Not one was caught on flight two.

The exposure is not the violation. It is the interval between the violation and the moment someone finds it. Every operator here had the information required to catch the problem. In each case it sat in a file that nobody had a reason to open.

An honest note

I build compliance records software, so the obvious move would be to claim all six were preventable by buying it. They were not. Two would have surfaced clearly. Two would have surfaced partially. Two would not have been caught by any records system, mine included, and I say so plainly on those cases. A tool that claims to catch everything is not worth the disc it sits on.

The honest scorecard

Six cases. Two a records system surfaces clearly, two it helps with, two it does not touch.

OperatorThe record that failedRan forFileFlo
Southern AirwaysSIC competency check and required testing32 flightsSURFACES
Private JetsPIC / SIC / type testing in 12 monthsSeveral flightsSURFACES
StarFliteTraining records, falsified by management5 yearsPARTIAL
Brazos ValleyAD compliance and mechanic method training83 flightsPARTIAL
Gem AirEngine overhaul and inspection past due315 flightsNO
Planet NineFlight plans, permits, manual adherence21 filingsNO

What the pattern says

Three of the six turn on crew qualification currency. Half the enforcement actions came down to whether a specific person was current, in a specific seat, on a specific date, and whether anyone checked before the trip went. That is the failure mode that runs longest, because nothing about it is visible. An overdue engine eventually gets noticed. A gear failure announces itself. An expired competency check produces no symptom at all, and the exposure compounds one leg at a time until someone reads the file.

The six cases

Case 01 / Crew Qualification

Southern Airways Express

Palm Beach, FL · Announced March 2024 · $280,000 proposed

FileFlo surfaces this

Three Cessna Caravans flew 32 commercial flights between Washington Dulles and Morgantown, West Virginia with a co-pilot who had not passed recent written or oral tests, or a competency check. The FAA alleged the operation was careless or reckless and endangered life and property.

The record that failed

Second-in-command qualification. Specifically the written test, the oral test, and the competency check, each of which has to fall inside a defined lookback from the date of the flight.

32 revenue flights

Inside a twelve-day window in October 2022.

FileFlo tracks this exact object.

Each crewmember's required qualification events are held as dated records, anchored to the date of the regulatory event itself rather than the day a file was uploaded, and measured against the requirement that governs them. That co-pilot's competency check would have read as not current, by name, with the paragraph it comes from.

What it would not do: It would not have stopped the assignment. FileFlo is not in the crew scheduling or release path. It tells you the person is not current. A human still has to act on that.

Ask about your own operation

For every crewmember on next week's schedule, what is the date of their last competency check, and who verified it before the trip was assigned?

Case 02 / Maintenance Execution

Brazos Valley Air Charter

Tulsa, OK · Announced January 2025 · $202,450 proposed

FileFlo helps, partially

A mechanic inspected a Piaggio P180 main landing gear component for cracks without using the method the Airworthiness Directive specified. He had not been trained in that method and had not been given the required tools and equipment. The aircraft then flew roughly 83 flights over five months. On the last one, the right main landing gear failed on landing at Cincinnati Municipal / Lunken.

The records that failed

Two. AD compliance, which was recorded as satisfied when it was not. And the mechanic’s own training and equipment qualification for the task he signed for.

83 flights, five months

October 11, 2022 to March 17, 2023. It ended when the gear failed on landing, not in an audit.

The people half, yes. The procedure half, no.

FileFlo holds maintenance personnel training records on the same footing as crew records. If qualification in that inspection method was a required, dated item for that mechanic, it would have read as missing before he was the one signing.

What it would not do: It would not have known the inspection performed used the wrong method. No records platform observes the work. That gap belongs to maintenance QA and procedural control, and any vendor who tells you otherwise is selling.

Ask about your own operation

When someone signs off an AD-mandated inspection, where is the record showing they were trained and equipped for that specific method?

Case 03 / Component Limits

Gem Air

Salmon, ID · Announced May 2024 · $239,000 proposed

FileFlo would not catch this

A Cessna Caravan flew 315 flights with a required engine overhaul overdue. A Cessna T206 flew with an overdue engine exhaust inspection. A Britten-Norman BN-2A departed Boise for Salmon without enough fuel to complete the flight and made an emergency landing after the right engine stopped.

The record that failed

Component time tracking. The overhaul came due, and the airplane kept being dispatched against it for half a year.

315 flights

May 22 to November 28, 2022. Six months on one airframe.

This is a maintenance tracking problem, not a records problem.

An engine overhaul comes due on hours and cycles that accrue with every leg flown. That belongs to a maintenance tracking program reading live utilization. FileFlo is a compliance records and currency system. It is not a maintenance tracker and does not pretend to be one. Where the line actually falls: date-driven items, inspections and certificates with calendar expirations, are ours. Hour and cycle driven component limits are not.

Ask about your own operation

What tells you a component is approaching its limit, and does that signal reach the person building the schedule, or only the person doing the maintenance?

Case 04 / Document to Operation Drift

Planet Nine Private Air

Van Nuys, CA · Announced May 2026 · $336,000 proposed

FileFlo would not catch this

The FAA alleges the company filed 21 inaccurate international flight plans describing passenger charter flights as general aviation, failed to obtain overflight or landing permits, and failed to follow its own Oceanic and International Procedures Manual.

The record that failed

The filed flight plan and the permits. And note the third allegation, because it is the one that should get an operator’s attention: the manual was not missing. It existed, it was approved, and the operation did not follow it. The FAA charged the distance between the document and the practice.

21 flight plans

Roughly $16,000 per document, with no accident and no injury involved.

Nothing in a records system sees this.

Flight plan content, permit acquisition, and whether the crew followed a procedure on the day are operational acts, not record states. A compliance records platform can confirm your manual is current and controlled. It cannot observe whether anyone flew the way it says. The honest reading: this case is an argument for procedural audit and internal evaluation, not for software. It is here because leaving it out would make the other five look better than they should.

Ask about your own operation

Where does your manual say one thing while your operation reliably does another? That difference is chargeable on its own.

Case 05 / Crew Qualification

Private Jets, Inc.

Bethany, OK · Announced June 2026 · $104,000 proposed

FileFlo surfaces this

The FAA alleges an employee piloted several flights in April 2025 without having completed the testing required to serve as pilot in command, as second in command, or in the aircraft type operated, within the preceding twelve months.

The record that failed

Pilot qualification currency, evaluated three ways at once: by seat, by aircraft type, and against a rolling twelve-month lookback from the date of each flight.

Over a year, to the letter

Flights in April 2025. Enforcement announced June 2026.

This is the shape of the problem FileFlo was built for.

Currency is not one flag per pilot. It resolves per person, per seat, and per type, and it is computed from the date of the qualifying event rather than assumed from the presence of a file. A pilot missing type-specific testing reads as not current for that type while remaining current elsewhere, and the gap is named with the requirement behind it.

What it would not do: It would not tell you a document is unreadable and then guess anyway. When a date cannot be established from the record, FileFlo says so rather than assuming currency.

Ask about your own operation

Your answer has to be right per person, per seat, and per type. Can you produce all three for a given date without opening a folder?

Case 06 / Falsification

StarFlite Aviation

Houston, TX · February 2026 · Air carrier certificate revoked

FileFlo helps, partially

The FAA alleges management personnel made false entries in the training records of at least ten pilots, including the chief pilot, showing check rides and competency checks in various aircraft that never took place. The company used unqualified pilots on at least 170 flights. The agency also found it lacked the qualified management personnel required to run the operation.

The record that failed

The training record itself, falsified at the management level. And the management personnel requirement, which is not a file at all but a condition of holding the certificate.

Five years

November 2019 to November 2024. At least 170 flights. The business is gone.

It raises the cost of the lie. It does not detect one.

In FileFlo a requirement is satisfied by an underlying document with a readable date, not by a checkbox in a spreadsheet or a line in a training matrix. Fabricating a record means producing an actual artifact for every entry, and every entry is attributable and dated.

What it would not do: It would not catch a forged document that looks correct. If management manufactures a signed check ride form, it will read as satisfied. Software does not solve for a chief pilot who is in on it. Independent verification does.

Ask about your own operation

Who can create or edit a training record in your shop, and is there any independent trace that the event actually happened?

The five-minute self-check

Pick a flight you ran ninety days ago. Answer these without opening a filing cabinet or calling anyone.

  1. 1

    Who occupied each seat, and was each of them current for that seat and that type on that date?

  2. 2

    Was the aircraft inside every inspection, AD, and component limit that day?

  3. 3

    Who released the trip, and are they listed in your manual as authorized to exercise operational control?

  4. 4

    Does the record proving all of the above still exist, and does it carry a date and a signature?

If any answer required a phone call to one specific person, that person is your compliance system. That works right up until they are on vacation, or the schedule moves at 0500, or the request arrives about a flight from eighteen months ago.

What FileFlo does

FileFlo reads the documents an operation already has, holds them in one place, and keeps a live answer to a narrow question: is this requirement satisfied for this person or this aircraft, as of today, and what is the rule behind it. Currency is computed from the date of the regulatory event, not the day a file was uploaded. When a date cannot be read from a document, it says so instead of guessing.

It is a proof layer. It does not fly the schedule, dispatch the trip, or replace a maintenance tracking program or a safety management system. The two cases here where it would not have helped are named on purpose.

Get the full teardown

The designed PDF has all six cases, the scorecard, and the self-check in one file. Or send me one thing you are unsure about in your own records and I will tell you what an inspector would ask for that is not there. No deck, no demo required.

Download the PDFEmail Chad directly

Sources, all from the FAA’s own announcements

All published at faa.gov/newsroom. Allegations described here are as stated by the FAA. Proposed civil penalties are proposed, not final, and operators have the right to respond.