Flight school owner indicted with former instructor
Grand jury adds conspiracy charges, prosecutors seek to recover $101K paid by students
A federal judge on March 10 delayed until October the trial of a Pennsylvania flight school owner and the instructor he employed who was previously charged with manslaughter and providing instruction without a valid certificate.
A federal grand jury in February indicted the former CFI and the flight school owner who employed him on charges of conspiracy and wire fraud.
U.S. District Court Judge John Gallagher agreed on March 10 to requests by the defendants to delay the trial of the two men, with jury selection now scheduled to begin on October 17.
According to a superseding indictment, Saleem opened the flight school in 2018, and was present on October 7, 2021, when McPherson surrendered his pilot's certificate to the FAA at the Allentown Flight Standards District Office. McPherson failed a reexamination ordered under 49 U.S.C. Section 44709 following FAA investigation of a safety hotline report that McPherson had been instructing students on two occasions in 2020 and 2021 when the aircraft veered off the runway during landing and was damaged. The indictment states that McPherson failed to demonstrate a go-around during the reexamination, and the FAA aviation safety inspector "had to assume control of the aircraft … or the plane could have crashed."
The indictment alleges that Saleem signed a document at the FSDO attesting that he witnessed the surrender of McPherson's pilot certificate. McPherson was issued a temporary airman certificate that same day, allowing him to fly (without passengers) "in order to train and remediate his competence issues."
Between October 7, 2021, and September 28, 2022, the date of the fatal accident, McPherson and Saleem are alleged to have "illegally scheduled flight instruction sessions" and delivered 79 hours of lessons to various students that McPherson was not legally authorized to instruct, according to the indictment. Students paid the defendants "approximately $101,527.93 for invalid flight instruction," the indictment states.
The indictment specifies that the defendants "shall forfeit to the United States" the proceeds of the alleged violations, "including but not limited to" the estimated sum paid by the students.
The conspiracy is alleged to have begun on October 6, 2021, when, according to the indictment, McPherson texted Saleem to inform his employer of the failed reexamination.
"The attorney I was speaking to says I legally should not fly. except to prep for the examination… in the meantime, perhaps we just tell the students I'm out for a couple weeks until I get a negative covid test or something? And I can direct them to study for their written," McPherson wrote to Saleem, according to the indictment.
According to the indictment, Saleem responded: "Understood. That's fine. You and I need to be on the same page with students… It's nobody's business so nobody needs to know anything."
Saleem then directed McPherson to start flying with a student "on my simulator so that we can make some money. Especially since we can log it. [The student] doesn't need to know anything either."
McPherson responded, according to another text quoted in the indictment, "yeah I'm not mentioning it to anyone. Ill just deal and be done with it."
The indictment goes on to list 40 separate occasions on which Saleem was paid by students for instruction provided by McPherson, followed by the accident flight on September 28, 2022.
The original manslaughter charge against McPherson remains in the new indictment. The grand jury also alleged that both defendants "corruptly influenced, obstructed, and impeded" an FAA proceeding in December 2023 by "submitting knowingly false declarations" to the FAA, specifically that an aviation safety inspector had advised McPherson he could continue to provide flight instruction after surrendering his pilot certificate, which the defendants know was never said.
According to court records, Saleem, who was born in Pakistan, surrendered his U.S. passport on February 28.
