FAA Proposes $2.388 Million Fine for Unapproved Temperature Gauge

A small California flight school is facing a huge potential fine for installing the wrong temperature gauge in one of its nine Cessna 172s. The FAA announced Friday that it’s proposing Stratus Aviation, which owns Wings Flight School, of Vacaville, California, be hit with a $2,388,500 fine for flying the 172M with the unapproved part 280 times over 20 months from February of 2023 to September of 2024. The school has 30 days to plead its case to either submit a defense or ask for a reduction in the fine.

The FAA normally levies a fine for each occurrence of the violation and in this case that would be $8,530.36 per flight. The terse news release on the FAA site leaves out some details. For instance, it’s not clear which temperature gauge was replaced with the unapproved part. The time lag between the installation of the part in October of 2022 and the first flight of the “unairworthy” aircraft in February of 2023 was also not explained. We’ll be contacting the school to try to get more details. Here’s the FAA’s full statement.

FAA Proposes $2,388,500 Fine Against Stratus Aviation, LLC for Alleged Operation of an Unairworthy ADownload

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