This one comes up from time to time – I mean for real. Rarely, but it happens.
I am not sure it automatically follows the subject line is true. The candidate should have legal recourse to the employer of the examiner. If the employer is the national CAA, there is an expectation that the examiner will have valid papers, and there have been cases where the person approached the relevant CAA with lawyers and got his license/rating properly applied.
The problem might be with a normal instructor. OK, you can go after the school or FTO for a refund of the training you paid for, plus possibly the cost of the aircraft if it was your own one, but you can’t get the instruction time back into your logbook. OTOH would such training be disqualified, given that the student was obviously unaware of the instructor’s invalid or expired papers?
The candidate should have legal recourse to the employer of the examiner
An Examiner Certificate is issued to a person not an organisation. Most examining activities are independent of any organisation, the one exception being CAA Staff; so I fail to see how any Employer could be regarded responsible for any omission by the Examiner.
CAP 804 advises candidates to check the credentials of any examiner they chose to use
OTOH would such training be disqualified
Traditionally No, the Authority would determine if there were any safety implications, was the instructor adequately experienced and trained. Their omissions would not normally impinge upon the student. Now there is an umbrella above the instructor, the ATO is responsible for all instruction, it operates in accordance with an Operations and Training Manuals and is audited in accordance with a Compliance Manual therefore the organisation will be at fault if the instructor was found to be lacking in any way. Whether the student is penalised will depend upon how burocratic the regulator is. The Examiner remains outside the ATO and is on his own hence the recomendation for appropriate but unobtainable liability insurance.
