High-flying imposter Thomas Salme pulled off what seems like an impossible fraud – he got away with piloting commercial passenger jets for an astonishing 13 years.
With his impressive pilot’s uniform and fake credentials, the smooth-talking con man transported thousands of unsuspecting passengers before finally being found out.
Salme was every bit as good as the fake aviator portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in “Catch Me If You Can,” say law enforcement officials.
He was finally grounded when cops recently busted him at the controls of a Boeing 737 just minutes before take-off with 101 passengers.
The 41-year-old phony began working as a maintenance man at the Scandinavian airline SAS, but he had dreams of flying. Instead of attending flight school, a buddy at the airline let him practice on a flight simulator at night when the rest of the training center was closed.
“I’d train there for two or three hours at a time – at least 15 to 20 times over one and a half years,” Salme confessed.
“I got the crackpot idea to apply as a co-pilot at a real airline, so I made myself a Swedish flying permit with a logo out of regular white paper.
“It wasn’t laminated – it looked like something I’d made at home. I was surprised at how easy it all was.”
Amazingly, the home-schooled pilot spent at least 10,000 flying hours in passenger jets – carrying travelers all over Europe and working at airlines in Belgium, Britain and Italy. It appears he had a clean and safe flying record.
But in March, Salme’s career took a sudden nosedive.
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