A judge in New Zealand has theoretically clipped a rebel 76-year-old pilot’s wings for good after determining that his long history flouting the regs makes it unlikely he’ll change his ways. According to Stuff, Judge Chris Tuohy of the Wellington District Court said the litany of half-baked defenses Lindsay McNicol had offered for a decades-long history of ignoring the country’s medical certification and currency requirements gave him “no reason whatever to think that Mr. McNicol’s attitude or behavior has changed or will change in the future. It is an entrenched pattern going back almost 30 years.” He upheld the revocation of McNicol’s license by a federal authorities.
McNicol’s license was suspended in 2019 after someone tipped the Civil Aviation Authority that he had flown a round trip to a nearby town when neither he nor his Yeoman Cropmaster were legal to fly. When investigators dug into his 50 years in the cockpit, they found he hadn’t had a BFR since 1996 and didn’t have a current medical. They also found out that Australian officials had convicted him 37 times for flying without a license. The CAA revoked his license in 2020 and fined him $3900. McNicol appealed through the courts and argued that he’d flown safely for decades and had been “too busy” to get a medical. Tuohy was having none of it and said he didn’t trust McNicol to change his behavior. “He is now 76, not an age where attitudinal change can be expected.”
