‘Grossly negligent’ flight instructor charged in plane crash that killed student pilot

A flight instructor the Federal Aviation Administration deemed too incompetent to continue operating unsupervised, simply ignored the ban and kept teaching students until he eventually killed a trainee in a horrific crash.

That’s according to a federal grand jury indictment unsealed Monday in Allentown, Pennsylvania, federal court, charging Philip Everton McPherson II with involuntary manslaughter over the 2022 incident.

The victim is identified in the indictment as “K.K.,” but was named in contemporaneous news reports as 49-year-old IT consultant Keith Kozel. McPherson has never been IDed as the second person in the plane, until now.

McPherson — who was allegedly such a menace in the air, the indictment says an FAA safety inspector evaluating his skills had to grab the controls mid-flight to avoid disaster — does not have an attorney listed in court records and was unable to be reached for comment.

McPherson, a New Jersey resident, earned his student pilot’s certificate in January 2018, according to the indictment. A little over a year later, McPherson began trying for his full pilot’s license, it says. In December 2019, McPherson finally qualified for his commercial pilot’s certification, with an instrument rating, “[a]fter multiple failed practical exams,” the indictment goes on. In March 2020, McPherson was awarded his flight instructor certificate.

Things soon took a turn for the terrifying. On two separate occasions, while in the air with student pilots in November 2020 and March 2021, the feds say McPherson veered off the runway while attempting to land, avoiding serious injuries but leaving the plane “substantially damaged.”

“Following these accidents, the FAA received a Safety Hotline complaint concerning McPherson,” the indictment continues. “Based on this investigation, the [inspector] concluded that the FAA had reason to question defendant McPherson’s ‘competence as a certificated airman’ and that ‘reexamination of [his] qualification to be the holder of an airman certificate is necessary in the interest of safety.”

The FAA contacted McPherson by mail and requested he appear in May 2021 for a reexamination. He did not respond, according to the…