Air Canada pilot accused of flying for 17 years without proper licence

Describing an elaborate ruse that “read like a movie script”, Canadian authorities accused a longtime Air Canada pilot of fraud on Tuesday, saying he had flown many hundreds of hours over 17 years despite not having the proper credential to sit in the captain’s seat.

The pilot, Geoff Wall, 59, faces seven charges, including fraud over $US5000, forging documents and public mischief. The charges were brought by the Peel Regional Police Department in Ontario, which has jurisdiction over the Toronto Pearson International Airport, an Air Canada hub.

Wall, who retired last year before the investigation, held some valid flight credentials, but did not have an Airline Transport Pilot License from the federal regulator, Transport Canada, which is required to fly as a captain, according to Canadian authorities. Despite this, he was the captain for 900 flights between 2009 and 2025. Transport Canada said it had conducted an investigation and issued fines, but did not provide specific details.

Authorities said Wall, of Barrie, Ontario, was underqualified while being responsible for the safety of hundreds of unsuspecting Air Canada passengers at a time.

“This is very similar to a doctor that is licensed to practice family medicine but is doing brain surgery in their office,” said Nick Milinovich, a deputy chief of the Peel Regional Police.

Wall’s conduct became suspicious when he presented dubious credentials during a routine regulatory check at his home airport, Toronto Pearson, in March 2025, said Chad Michell, a detective with the Peel Regional Police. That set in motion an inquiry by Canadian transportation regulators and later the criminal investigation, which authorities called Project Icarus.

Wall’s licence was found to be counterfeit, Michell said. He was arrested June 1 and later released with a court date for later this month, authorities said. Wall did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

Transport Canada requires a passing score on three written tests and 1,500 hours of flight time to obtain the licence.

John Gradek, a faculty lecturer in aviation management at McGill University, argued that Transport Canada and Air Canada should both be held accountable for passing Wall through routine checks to fly if he did not have the proper licensing.

“He was an excellent pilot,” Gradek said. “That doesn’t mean he was OK to fly.”

Air Canada said in a statement that passenger “safety was not compromised” by Wall’s actions, because pilots are put through flight training every six months. Wall had “successfully met or exceeded the required recurrent training, demonstrating a high level of competency to safely operate large aircraft,” according to the airline, which employed him for 27 years.

“However, appropriate licensing is an essential layer of the airline industry’s multilayered approach to safety, so Air Canada takes this matter with utmost seriousness,” said the statement, which added that an audit of its pilots found “no other instances of noncompliance.”

After retiring from Air Canada, Wall worked at Georgian College in his hometown as a coordinator for students with military ties, he wrote in a personal essay last year on the college’s website that has since been taken down.

He wrote that he started flying in high school and earned a private pilot’s licence. He then joined the Canadian military, flying helicopters “off the backs of Navy ships.” Air Canada hired him as a pilot in 1998.

“I still remember thinking there was no way I’d get the job,” Wall wrote.

Daniel Blouin, a spokesperson for Canada’s Department of National Defense, said a man named Geoffrey Wall joined the military in 1987 and served as a maritime helicopter pilot before his discharge in 2004. Philip Scheirich, a spokesperson for Georgian College, said Wall was a part-time employee of the college but would not comment on an active criminal investigation.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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