Con At The Controls!

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When the occupants of Sen. Paul Wellstone’s charter aircraftwere bouncing through the muck of a late fall storm last week, it’s hard toimagine a 12-year-old fraud conviction against their pilot would have made muchdifference to them or in any way impaired that pilot’s abilities. But in theabsence of anything new in the investigation of the crash, the focus hasshifted to the relatively ancient history of pilot Richard Conry’s apparentlyshady dealings in the house-construction business. The Minneapolis / St. PaulStar Tribune last week got its collective hands on Conry’s criminal record anddiscovered he went to a "federal prison camp" for more than a yearbeginning in 1990 for 14 counts of mail fraud. The scheme resulted in somesubcontractors not getting paid for their work on houses Conry built. Conry didhis time and was repaying the people he had defrauded. In April of 2001, atExecutive Aviation — where he was presumably hired based on his ability to flyan airplane — he truthfully answered the question on their applicationinquiring whether he had had a criminal conviction in the previous five years.However, Rep. James Oberstar, outspoken on aviation safety issues, questionedthat ability, based on Conry’s history. "It goes to the question of hisfitness to fly." And even though Conry filled out the employment applicationtruthfully, Oberstar suggested he should have volunteered the information aboutthe conviction. "It’s more than an act of omission, it’s a deliberate actof deception," he said. The whole affair may remind some of the Canadianpilot who deadsticked an A330 to a landing in the Azores last year. In thatinstance, the skill Captain Piche employed to guide the silent jet for roughly15 minutes over the open ocean and to a safe landing, saving the lives of allon board, was apparently not impaired by his own previous drug bust. Still, thestory quickly shifted to Piche’s previous drug-related conviction. In thepublic’s perception, and Oberstar’s, it would appear that only angels shouldhave wings — even though as elected officials have perhaps demonstrated,angelic character is a rare quality.

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