Flight school monitors int’l students

The United States offers cheaper flight schools and more space for training than Rahul Gandhi could get in his native India, where he hopes to work as a commercial pilot.
Now a student at Tiffin Aviation Services at Nogales International Airport, Gandhi’s trip to the U.S. involved much more than applying to schools, obtaining a visa and paying his tuition.
He provided fingerprints for a Transportation Security Administration database and underwent a background check to ensure that he had no connections to terrorist groups. Upon his arrival, the flight school provided his picture to the TSA to compare against a picture Gandhi provided.
The TSA checks his visa status each time he moves on to another skill level.
“They are strict,” Gandhi said.
Before Sept. 11, 2001, foreign flight students weren’t watched as closely. One of Arizona’s most haunting connections to 9/11 is the fact that at least one hijacker received flight training in the state, while others trained elsewhere in the United States.
The federal government has since tightened screening of international flight students to make sure that doesn’t happen again. That means people like Larry Tiffin, who owns the flight school Gandhi is attending, have to monitor international students much more closely.
“It has added another level of expense to the business that we didn’t have before,” Tiffin said.
Once Tiffin receives word that an international student wants to train at his school, he has to wait until the student is cleared by the TSA, which usually takes about a month.
He then has to keep detailed records of the student’s training and must report any strange or dangerous behavior. Tiffin’s school is subject to four TSA inspections each year to make sure foreign students are in the country legally and have visas required for flight training.
The general requirements for keeping track of foreign students came under the USA Patriot Act of 2001. The TSA issued a rule in 2004 establishing the program through which all foreign flight students are screened before they’re allowed to train.
Bob Rockmaker, president of the Flight School Association of North America, said the regulations have made everyone in the industry more alert when it comes to detecting strange or dangerous behavior in students.
13/09/11 Whitney Phillips/Nogales International