In United States v. St. Amour, No. 17-13352 (Mar. 29, 2018) (per curiam) (Tjoflat, Martin, Jill Pryor), the Court upheld the defendant's conviction for operating an aircraft with an unapproved fuel system.
The Court rejected the defendant's argument that the term "operates an aircraft" only covered actions during or imminent to flight, and thus did not cover the defendant's conduct of merely taxiing and refueling the plane for a flight on the following day. Relying on statutory and regulatory definitions, the safety purpose of the statute, and decisions by administrative agencies, the Court concluded that the term "operate" encompassed the use of an aircraft of the ground--including the starting, taxiing, and parking of an aircraft--so long as the use was preparatory or incident to flight. No strict temporal relationship between the use of the aircraft and flight was required.
