On Apr 3, 9:56*pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:
buttman wrote:
On Apr 3, 8:27 pm, Dudley Henriques wrote:

The student was in command, and the lawyers would I'm sure argue that
reading to the letter of the law, but make no mistake; there was an
instructor failure here, a serious instructor failure.

There is not enough evidence here to accuse the instructor. How do you
know the instructor didn't do what is required to ensure safety?

The fact that the student ran out of fuel after being released for solo
by the instructor is the obvious answer to this question for those
believing that the instructor had a responsibility to ascertain the
aircraft was suitably fueled for the intended solo.

You are assuming the instructor did nothing to ensure the plane had
enough fuel. Nobody knows if this is true or not. For all we know, the
fuel starvation could have been caused by a fuel leak. Or maybe the
student didn't lean the mixture. Maybe the student decided to do a
little sight seeing instead of getting right back. There are all sorts
of explanations for this kind of thing happening.

I once had a student who did a precautionary landing at an airport
underlying Class C airspace on his third solo. He heard the engine
sputter, and freaked out I guess. Apparently he called the CTAF for
the airport he landed at, but not the approach controllers at the
bigger airport. He knew he had to call them, he just didn't. Before I
let any of my students solo, I give them a written test that covers
all the stuff solo students are supposed to know according to that
long list in part 61. If the FAA wants to blame me for this incident,
I'll just show them the page on his test where he got that particular
question right. Theres nothing more I could have done.