Small Aircraft; High Wing; 1 Eng; Fixed Gear
Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Commercial; Flight Crew Instrument
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 50; Flight Crew Total 1320; Flight Crew Type 1075
Situational Awareness; Confusion; Communication Breakdown; Training / Qualification
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
Human Factors
Prefacing this with: Paperwork issue; nothing damaged; no one hurt; no incidents occurred; strictly paperwork.Earlier in the year a student and his instructor working at the same flight school as me had worked together for months prior. At some point the student was in training and had been soloed by his previous instructor at this time. The coronavirus pandemic occurred at this time and that instructor elected to no longer continue working. I had picked this student up to continue training. The student told me he soloed and had been soloing until I picked him up as a student. I provided the student with training and re-currency training until I found him proficient in the same plane. The student mentioned he had his student pilot certificate medical and government issued photo ID and I took his word for it. He was acting PIC and he knew the rules so I endorsed him for his additional 90 days and sent him out of the office. I took record of the endorsement and at that point he went to work with another instructor at our school. After a few weeks the student was about to solo again; I went to him and asked to see his documents as a safety precaution. I found out he did not have his student pilot certificate and lied to me about having it originally. I told the student he was no longer allowed to solo. My boss and supervising instructor has now talked to the student and is working with him to figure out where or if he has his certificate and how to go about this next. The underlying issue was the student lying to me about having it when he did not because he was so eager to solo. Trusting the older flight instructor who said the student has his certificate; and me not physically verifying where the students documents were. It is not currently clear where the student pilot certificate was and at this time the chief instructor is working on finding it.
Flight instructor reported a new student to him did not have a student pilot solo certificate as the student had said.