Clipped Wings for Student Pilots at Texas School

By: Flying-A - 30th June 2009 at 03:54

With some practical advice to avoid joining them (via AOPA):

Before taking flying lessons, carefully check out the flight school

By BILL BOWEN

Special to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

June 27, 2009

In the end, bank officials grounded J’Nette Allred’s long-sought dream of a pilot’s license.

"I had the keys pulled out and I was gassed up, and they came in and said, 'That plane isn’t going anywhere,’ " Allred said of that day in March when she learned that North Texas Flight Academy, where she was taking flying lessons, was not paying its bills.

"I’ve been wanting to fly since I was a child," said Allred, a 54-year-old grandmother who works for a real estate development company.

She lost about $4,300 in prepaid training time, she said. Others lost even more. "It’s a horror story for all 25 of us students," she said.

The repossession of the planes ended operations for the small flight school at Northwest Regional Airport in Roanoke and left students out as much as $70,000 in lost tuition. The fate of several foreign students who were in the country on student visas is not known.

The school’s owner and the target of complaints, Raymond F. Sanino, had owned the 7-year-old school for almost three years.

Students say their calls to him have gone mostly unreturned save for a couple of terse replies. Contacted by the Watchdog last week, Sanino said he was in the hospital recently and declined to discuss the school’s failure or the lost tuition. He referred questions to Mark Waage, the attorney handling the school’s plan to file for bankruptcy.

Waage confirmed that he has been retained to represent the company in a Chapter 7 filing. Under Chapter 7, a company is liquidated and distributes any assets to secured creditors, which would not include the students. Waage said that the school operated well for two years under Sanino’s ownership but that the sour economy robbed the school of new students beginning in October.

That means that the school will not return to operations and that students are unlikely to recover any of their money.

Banks and suppliers are owed hundreds of thousands of dollars, employees said. Waage said the school has no assets. The office and hangar were rented. The four airplanes repossessed by the bank included one that had crashed and another that was stripped for parts.

The school opened in 2002 and has operated under three owners, said David Ireson, a pilot who served as an instructor for the company. Under Sanino, the school used a couple of Cessna 172 models and an Evektor SportsStar, a light sport aircraft, Ireson said.

In addition to the students, career pilots often used the facility to keep up flight time or speed around in the Evektor.

"My loss is small compared to the students’," said Dale Peterson, a retired American Airlines pilot who had $800 on account at the academy for his own pleasure flying.

The sudden closure is a stark reminder of the sometimes uncertain nature of training programs, said John Riggins, chief executive of the Fort Worth Better Business Bureau.

"It’s not unusual for a trade school to go out of business," he said. An additional hazard is that students who use loans to pay tuition are often still on the hook for repayment.

Only last year, Silver State Helicopter, a national chain of flight schools for helicopters, shuttered operations, leaving more than 2,000 students in the lurch at its 33 schools, including one at Meacham Field in Fort Worth. Some estimates put the lost tuition at more than $100 million.

North Texas Flight Academy may have held about $70,000 on account for its students when it closed, Ireson said.

Schools that require thousands of dollars upfront for individual flight training should be a red flag for students, said Chris Dancy, a spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association in Frederick, Md.

"You should really carefully look at the payment options," Dancy said. "While a career school might ask you to pay for an entire semester or year up front, for a pilot’s license, you usually pay for each lesson as you go."

Steven Summers, a 27-year-old pilot, paid $10,000 to the school on a Saturday and returned Monday for a refund after realizing he had intended to sign up at another school at the airport.

Sanino refused, citing the contract’s nonrefundable clause. Summer’s lessons had only begun when the company closed. He says he’s owed about $8,500.

"I never got into the air," Summers said.

The Texas Workforce Commission oversees and monitors vocational training programs for everything from bartending to dental assistant training through its Career Schools and Colleges Program. But flight schools are exempt.

Riggins said that students should take it upon themselves to research a training program’s track record and talk to employers who have hired the students. The owner’s background may also be pertinent.

Sanino is listed on a Denton County Web site as a registered sex offender. He was convicted of indecency with a child involving sexual contact with a 9-year-old girl in 1993.

Allred said she did little to check out the school’s background before she signed up, although her husband is a licensed pilot.

"I liked it because it was a rural atmosphere out there and quiet and peaceful."

It rankles her that Sanino drove a Jaguar and his wife, Anita Sanino, carried a Louis Vuitton purse, she said.

Still, she hasn’t soured on flying.

"I’d really like to complete the course," she said.

Allred filed a complaint with the Denton County Sheriff’s Department. Officials there said they are not investigating, citing the company’s plan to file for bankruptcy.

News researcher Cathy Belcher contributed to this report.

Before you pay The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association offers a number of guidelines for selecting a flight school at www.aopa.org/letsgoflying/ready/choose/howto.html.

The Texas Workforce Commission keeps a list of schools with approved programs and some consumer protections, though flight schools are not covered.

https://services.twc.state.tx.us/PECOSRPT/propschool.