A Fake Airline Captain Flew Passengers Across Europe For Months—And Major Airlines Never Noticed His Forged License

A pilot posing as an airline captain flew hundreds of passengers on commercial flights across Europe for months—using forged credentials to bypass checks. Major airlines never noticed until now.

The pilot has been exposed as a fraud, along the lines of Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can. He was hired as a first officer, for Avion Express, a Lithuanian carrier that operates flights for other airlines. He allegedly forged documents for a captain qualification.

And since Avion Express wet leases crews along with aircraft, he reportedly flew flights on behalf of numerous other carriers like Lufthansa’s Eurowings.

• His forged documents were apparently used to bypass required simulator checks and flight‑time/experience thresholds.

• He operated commercial flights this way for months.

He was grounded when his documents were audited as part of a standard procedure – just not early enough. Of course, there have been plenty of other Catch Me If You Can-style incidents.

• A Florida man scored 120 free flights by posing as a pilot and a flight attendant.

• A former Mesa Airlines employee (who lasted just four months in 2015) learned enough to use fake credentials to book 1,953 free Spirit Airlines flights in 21 months.

• A 19-year old created a fake ID of a Singapore Airlines co-pilot to scam 50 people and impress women. But it was a 15-year old that figured out he was full of it and turned him in.

• Meanwhile, a United Airlines flight attendant was caught after living 23 years under someone else’s name who had died young, obtained their passport and shortened the name – even renewing their passport several times and sponsoring U.S. residency for their partner (since he was a ‘citizen’)!

• Of course the damage done by most of these is small. It’s not like actually flying commercial planes without the proper credentials. But then 30% of Pakistan International Airlines pilots were discovered to have been doing that.

Perhaps most famously, William Chandler was a South African Airways pilot who became infamous in 2019 for operating commercial flights for more than 20 years without valid credentials. He was a senior first officer, flying Airbus A340s long haul. He had forged his Airline Transport Pilot License.

Chandler legitimately held a commercial pilot’s license (which allowed him to serve as a co-pilot), he falsified credentials to hold a more advanced license required for the long-haul international routes he operated. This unraveled in November 2018 during an incident over Switzerland onboard SA206 from Johannesburg to Frankfurt. He improperly executed an avoidance maneuver over the Swiss Alps, which triggered a review that uncovered his fraudulent credentials.

The pilot resigned immediately, avoiding an internal disciplinary hearing, but the airline pursued criminal charges, and sought to force him to pay back about $1 million in salary. Although he did not meet regulatory requirements, he had undergone periodic simulator checks and recurrent training over the years, and maintained technical competency. There were no other known safety incidents he was involved in over the two decades.