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Flight center ordered to reinstate whistle-blower pilot

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The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has ordered a flight center that employs pilots to reinstate a whistle-blower pilot and pay him more than $500,000 in back wages, benefits and damages, the agency said Wednesday.

The Lake in the Hills, Ill.-based Northern Illinois Flight Center Inc. employs pilots to fly aircraft for the transportation of passengers and property, OSHA said in its announcement.

OSHA said the center violated the whistle-blower protection provisions of the Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century by illegally terminating an unidentified pilot after he contacted the Federal Aviation Administration to discuss violations of the pilot certification process.

The pilot charged that he was asked to falsify an FAA pilot certification for a training flight he performed with another pilot. The pilot maintained all the required elements were not completed during the training flight, which was conducted in February 2009, so that he could not certify the form.

He charged that in March 2009, flight center supervisors tried to coerce him into signing a backdated and incorrect form, and that he was terminated in April 2009 after contacting the FAA on the issue, with no reason stated.

OSHA does not release the names of employees involved in whistle-blower complaints.

OSHA Assistant Secretary of Labor David Michaels said in a statement: “Firing pilots for reporting inaccurate procedures to the FAA endangers other pilots, their passengers and the public at large.

“The Labor Department has a responsibility to protect all employees, including those in the aviation industry, from retaliation for raising safety concerns and exercising these basic worker rights.”

A spokesman for the flight center had no comment.

In July, OSHA ordered an air carrier to reinstate and compensate a whistle-blower pilot who was allegedly discharged for raising safety concerns and for contacting the FAA about those concerns.