Date: 201902
Local time of day: 1201-1800
Location: MKT.Airport, MN
Flight conditions: VMC
Light: Daylight
Aircraft: PA-28 Cherokee/Archer/Dakota/Pillan/Warrior
Operator: FBO
Operating under: Part 91
Flight plan: IFR
Mission: Training
Flight phase: Other Entire flight
Reporter organization: FBO
Reporter qualification: Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Commercial; Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine
Human factors: Communication Breakdown
Anomaly: Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Detector: Person Flight Crew
When detected: Pre-flight
Result: General Maintenance Action
Contributing factors: Human Factors; Procedure
Primary problem: Procedure

Narrative: I was in our flight school's Dispatch area when an Assistant Chief who was in the middle of a stage came out and mentioned if we could find the annual because the student whom he was with; could find the most recent annual inspection. So myself; two other CFI's and a different Assistant Chief inspected the maintenance records to search for the most current annual. The latest logs in the maintenance book were 50 hr. and 100 hr. inspections. Starting at the beginning of the maintenance records; the airplane received its airworthiness certificate on [date] and the next entry in the maintenance book stated that it would abide by annual inspections and 100 hour inspections on [date]. Which would put the airplane outside of its annual. The Dispatcher called our Maintenance to see if the airplane was still good to fly by comparing what our scheduling/lesson tracker was saying to what maintenance's system was saying. They said it should be okay to fly; so another CFI brought the maintenance records to Maintenance. I was not witness to this; however the CFI said that A and P inspected the logs and said it was good. The CFI asked to show him where it was good so he knows that it is airworthy. The A and P and the Chief Instructor then told him that it was good and that he should just go fly and not worry about it.During that time I inspected my log book and noticed that I had flown that airplane three times during [month]. Worried that I may have flown another one of the airplanes that was purchased at that same time. I walked to our maintenance facility to inspect the other maintenance records to see if those airplanes were valid. When I arrived I inspected one airplane's maintenance records and found it to be up to date on inspections. As I was returning that maintenance log the Chief CFI walked around the corner and said all the airplanes were good to go and left. Our A and P then walked into the room and I asked him if the airplane with the missing annual was good. He said it was as he was holding the maintenance records. I asked if he could show me when the most recent annual was completed; to which he responded 'Not now; I'll show you later'. After this occurred I went back to the dispatch area to talk with the other instructors to figure out what happened. My Assistant Chief Instructor told me the Chief CFI was looking for me. I went into his office and there were two other instructors who were looking into the missing annual. While in the room; the chief scolded us; telling us how the A and P is close to winning an A and P award and how it's not okay for us to start rumors about an unairworthy airplane. He said that the A and P made a simple mistake in the log books and simply put the wrong sticker in. He compared it to when a wrong lesson is put into [the scheduling system]. He then told us that we should not file any safety reports and dismissed us.The day after I spoke with our Director of Safety and I explained the situation to him. He was appalled by everything and recommended I submit a NASA and an internal report. I believe the root cause of this issue was that the annual due date was not entered into [the record keeping system] correctly. I believe that in [the record keeping system] they entered 'The annual and 100  inspections will be completed on the aircraft' [date] as when the annual inspection was completed. Thereby causing them to assume the annual would not be due until after its true due date.I think the best corrective action would be to fulfill the duties of PIC ensuring that an airplane is airworthy before every flight. One way that this could be done; would be to have pictures of the maintenance records implemented into the [record keeping] software so that the PIC is able to view the dates at the dispatching computer instead of walking to the maintenance hangar.




Synopsis: Flight Instructor reported concerns that an aircraft was unairworthy due to not being in compliance with the annual inspection requirement and that the records did not correctly reflect the inspection due date.