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What happens if you land somewhere abroad and have forgotten your passport?

A Brit or anybody else who does not have any form of US issued photo ID

A state issued photo ID. The FAA or somebody has, I believe, ruled that the UK driving license doesn’t count. So a passport is the only option. Some previous threads… I don’t recall the FAA saying that only a passport is acceptable, literally; it was a process of elimination.

I guess many more Brits have a passport compared to Germans.

I wonder whether that is because Brits travel more, or because there is no ID card in the UK. It cannot be Schengen because that is relatively recent. OTOH a Brit doesn’t need a passport at all – except for travelling abroad. It might be damn hard to do some online tasks without it.

It is a good point about having a scan of the passport somewhere. But if it gets “out” you could lose big time. I know someone whose bank account was cleaned out (£7k) when somebody conned him to send him a passport scan.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

@Peter, my original comment was in agreement with you – in saying “US issued photo ID” I meant to communicate an ID issued by either the US Federal Government, a US state, US territory or the US District of Columbia. Reading my (post #19) link to the relevant regulation it appears to me that anybody who doesn’t have one of those US IDs needs to have a passport from any nation in their possession to utilize an FAA pilot certificate. The would be no distinction between UK residents and residents of e.g. other European countries.

Here’s an extract from the FAA regulation:

No person may serve as a required pilot flight crewmember of a civil aircraft of the United States, unless that person:

(2) Has a photo identification that is in that person’s physical possession or readily accessible in the aircraft when exercising the privileges of that pilot certificate or authorization. The photo identification must be a:

(i) Driver’s license issued by a State, the District of Columbia, or territory or possession of the United States;

(ii) Government identification card issued by the Federal government, a State, the District of Columbia, or a territory or possession of the United States;

(iii) U.S. Armed Forces’ identification card;

(iv) Official passport;

(v) Credential that authorizes unescorted access to a security identification display area at an airport regulated under 49 CFR part 1542; or

(vi) Other form of identification that the Administrator finds acceptable.

However, I think you’ve raised a point in reference to the way the law is written. The ID requirement describing US IDs is written as follows “(i) Driver’s license issued by a State, the District of Columbia, or territory or possession of the United States.” Note that the word ‘State" is capitalized, which could if you really pushed the point be interpreted to mean a driver’s license issued by a foreign country, as opposed to a US state. I don’t believe this was the intent in the context of the way the rest of the regulation is written.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 13 Aug 19:27

I assume GA user experience will be quit different than in CAT, but the outcome will not look great:

If you land with GA aircraft at Heathrow or CDG without papers you will be sent back on the next CAT flight, this is “the standard airliners process” and border force will not improvise a solution for your problem, so you will not get the chance to use the local embassy option or even fly your own aircraft back, and given the welcoming attitude to GA in many big airports you may be used as “an example”…

If you land in small GA airport with no papers, ground personnel have more leeway to improvise on your case or making rules (good and bad), so you may get the chance to see the local restaurant/hotel but I doubt they will just let you roam free for one week holiday with no papers (even if they have seen you before), but then the question is when you will deport/fly yourself back?

If you land in mixed military/civilian airports (e.g. Tours), they like to see more papers than just your EU-ID card, having nothing is really looking for troubles

Not something I am keen to try, but I was wondering if in some airporys you will be in a worse situation if you lost your PPL or medical?

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

Silvaire wrote:

Here’s an extract from the FAA regulation:

In practice I imagine the situations where it could matter are:
A) A very very (very!) pick ram check. Probably the only way to get that is to really annoy the person doing it
B) An accident where there is an investigation, but
1) The investigation will show that the pilot’s certificate was valid, so in the state where that happened the law will probably be content with that
2) I doubt any insurer could prove that given 1), that the pilot certificate was void due to a passport not being on board

I might be wrong but then I guess you’d just be in violation of the US laws, which they will probably never know about. Even if they did, I doubt they’d go as far as revoking the certificate (and I doubt they’d be able to go further too)

In theory if just stopping for fuel/transit flight crew only need ID under ICAO.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

Silvaire wrote:

I think you mean that there is no national identity card issued in the UK, not that there is no government furnished photo ID that is valid for this purpose. Otherwise you could never fly

Yes, that’s what I meant.

Peter wrote:

A state issued photo ID. The FAA or somebody has, I believe, ruled that the UK driving license doesn’t count. So a passport is the only option. Some previous threads… I don’t recall the FAA saying that only a passport is acceptable, literally; it was a process of elimination.

Peter, do you have a reference for this? I have never heard nor seen it.

EGTK Oxford

JasonC wrote:

Peter, do you have a reference for this? I have never heard nor seen it.

Well according to the regulation posted by silvaire above, a foreign DL would need to be recognized as

Other form of identification that the Administrator finds acceptable.

So turning your question around where is written that a foreign DL is acceptable? Especially if you’re trying to convince that 250lb guy with a sidearm….

Of course, as you would expect, none of that is acceptable in Australia where you need a special Aviation ID (AVID) or Aviation Security ID Card (ASIC)….which needs to be renewed at great expense every 4 or 2 years…after renewed background checks….

YPJT, United Arab Emirates

@jasonc

I have it here and Silvaire’s post #22 above lists the FAR wording, and

(iv) Official passport;

appears to be the only one which meets the requirements for someone who does not hold one of the various US documents.

As discussed above I don’t think the words

(i) Valid driver’s license issued by a State, the District of Columbia, or territory or possession of the United States;

refer to “State” as being a non US country.

The FAA regulation is here.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I had trouble with my last FAA BFR where the flight school wanted a copy of my US passport… which I don’t have. I was a bit worried, but they went on to say it was impossible to have a US licence without a US passport, which clearly isn’t the case, so they had just misunderstood the requirements. If anyone else has problems it’s under 49 CFR 1552.3(h) but AOPA has a good summary.

EGHO-LFQF-KCLW, United Kingdom
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