Florida Flight School Owner Pleads Guilty to Fraud Charges

The owner of Florida-based flight school Beach Aviation has pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to charges including operating an aircraft without an airman’s certificate, wire fraud, and falsification of records. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General, Robert Charles Jones Brady received payment for numerous charter flights and flight instruction services after all of his FAA certificates were revoked in 2016. The investigation showed that he used a fleet of aircraft including business jets to defraud the government, airmen, and the flying public.

The complaints noted that he fraudulently endorsed student pilot logbooks and directed his employees to do the same despite the fact that he and many of his flight instructors were not CFIs. He also hired unqualified foreign nationals to act as CFIs and as a result of those actions, many of the company’s student pilots found their training hours disallowed by the FAA.

The case also revealed that Brady advertised domestic and international charter flights even though his Boca Raton company did not have FAA authorization to do so. Agents listed more than 700 paid charter flights by the company to and from South Florida, the Bahamas, and other locations. On many of those flights, Brady piloted aircraft he was not certified to fly. A sentencing hearing is set for May 16.