From Neil Boortz's website:

On Saturday mornings when I’m home in Atlanta (and not gallivanting around the countryside in my airplane) I meet for breakfast with a group of fellow pilots and aircraft owners. This last Saturday we naturally discussed the tragic aircraft accident that claimed the life of Senator Paul Wellstone last week. Questions were raised about the competency of the pilots and the regulations under which this particular flight was flown. These conversations drove me to a bit of studying of the Federal Air Regulations (FARs).



OK .. don’t want to bore you here, but I did uncover something curious. Simply stated, when you’re flying yourself, your family and friends around the countryside in your private airplane as a private pilot you are flying under the regulations set forth in Part 91. But, when you’re flying people hither and yon for money you operate under Part 135 where a commercial pilot’s license is required and aircraft inspection policies are more stringent.

But … there is one little exception to these rules. One little inspection whereby a simple private pilot with no commercial license can charge a passenger to get that passenger from point A to point B. And would you care to guess just who those passengers might be? Well, take a look at this particular section of Part 91.

§91.321 Carriage of candidates in Federal elections.

(a) An aircraft operator, other than one operating an aircraft under the rules of part 121, 125, or 135 of this chapter, may receive payment for the carriage of a candidate in a Federal election, an agent of the candidate, or a person traveling on behalf of the candidate, if --

(1) That operator's primary business is not as an air carrier or commercial operator;
(2) The carriage is conducted under the rules of this part 91; and
(3) The payment for the carriage is required, and does not exceed the amount required to be paid, by regulations of the Federal Election Commission (11 CFR et seq.).



(b) For the purposes of this section, the terms candidate and election have the same meaning as that set forth in the regulations of the Federal Election Commission.



Yup … you got it. Political candidates. It would seem that our political class managed to get a little exception written into the law that makes it easier, and cheaper, for them to find pilots who will fly them and their staff around during election campaigns.

So … here’s how it works. A business owner who urgently needs to get to a critical business meeting, or a doctor who has an emergency 500 miles away, cannot pay a private pilot to take them there. But, a political candidate who needs to show up at a fundraiser can.

Now, I don’t know whether the Wellstone flight was being conducted under Part 91 or Part 135. It’s just interesting, though, how many special little privileges our politicians have established for themselves.



Wonder how often corners have been cut for such flights...someone needs to look into this for all such accidents over the years.