AvantAir entire fleet grounded for mx Inspections?

[chief9404]

I bet this incident has something to do with the shutdown. The FAA must have threatened to shut them down if they didn't do it themselves. They (FAA) may have found more problems with Mtx. As well, how does a crew land and not realize part of the tail is missing? Good job guys! Thank God you didn't kill anyone.

Now the remaining owners/customers will flee.



NTSB investigates missing Avantair P180 elevator
Print
By: JOHN CROFT WASHINGTON DC 07:19 3 Aug 2012 Source:

The two pilots of an Avantair Piaggio P180 Avanti II that landed at the Henderson Executive airport in Nevada the morning of 28 July discovered during a post-flight check that the twin turboprop's left elevator was missing.

The finding came after a positioning flight of N146SL from Camarillo, California, to San Diego, followed by a Part 91 fractional flight from San Diego to Henderson with two passengers on board.

According to a preliminary report by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the crew reported that they had a "non-eventful departure and flight from San Diego, and that the captain noticed that more back pressure on the flight controls was required for a normal landing upon arrival at Henderson".

NTSB says airport personnel at Camarillo on July 31 found the missing left elevator "near one of the runways".

A pusher aircraft, the Avanti II has a canard horizontal stabiliser surface with retractable flaps on the nose and a fixed horizontal T-tail stabilizer in the rear with left and right elevators.


©FLIGHTGLOBAL

Avantair says the aircraft suffered no damage as a result of the event, which the NTSB has classified as an accident. The company expected the aircraft to resume service by 4 August.

 

[jonjuan]

.....................

 

[fugazi]

I bet this incident has something to do with the shutdown. The FAA must have threatened to shut them down if they didn't do it themselves. They (FAA) may have found more problems with Mtx. As well, how does a crew land and not realize part of the tail is missing? Good job guys! Thank God you didn't kill anyone.

Now the remaining owners/customers will flee.



NTSB investigates missing Avantair P180 elevator
Print
By: JOHN CROFT WASHINGTON DC 07:19 3 Aug 2012 Source:

The two pilots of an Avantair Piaggio P180 Avanti II that landed at the Henderson Executive airport in Nevada the morning of 28 July discovered during a post-flight check that the twin turboprop's left elevator was missing.

The finding came after a positioning flight of N146SL from Camarillo, California, to San Diego, followed by a Part 91 fractional flight from San Diego to Henderson with two passengers on board.

According to a preliminary report by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the crew reported that they had a "non-eventful departure and flight from San Diego, and that the captain noticed that more back pressure on the flight controls was required for a normal landing upon arrival at Henderson".

NTSB says airport personnel at Camarillo on July 31 found the missing left elevator "near one of the runways".

A pusher aircraft, the Avanti II has a canard horizontal stabiliser surface with retractable flaps on the nose and a fixed horizontal T-tail stabilizer in the rear with left and right elevators.


©FLIGHTGLOBAL

Avantair says the aircraft suffered no damage as a result of the event, which the NTSB has classified as an accident. The company expected the aircraft to resume service by 4 August.

I believe that was the beginning..the aircraft was pushed out of mx within a day or two of loosing its elevator. Flown with pax and was then discovered to still have elevator issues. A week later (after the second write up)that same aircraft went off of 24 at TEB. That is why I believe the FAA has a hard on for the certificate. This is just the story I was told..

 

[ghostrider64]

There is ZERO doubt that AvantAir does in fact compete with NJA. I've seen many former owners getting into their aircraft.

That said no one wants to see this instability. It would be far better if we were all growing. However growth has been stagnant and decline for how many years now? Too many...

You can bet that NJA sales people are working overtime trying to,exploit those deep Berkshire Hathaway pockets. It was proven in the not so distant past, that WB was indeed willing to hold up the financial end during crisis. For someone who's time is worth a substantial amount, there really is no operator backed to such a degree as NJA.

Perhaps AvantAir is indicative of the greater downturn, willing to offer a product at a substantial discount, to those that see dollars before anything else? My question is, if this is a shutdown, what operator will be next? These aren't isolated financials at AvantAir. There are more than a few with slim financial backing.

Like I said, I'm not gloating, I'm concerned with the industry as a hole. An industry run by people who are so desperate to have increased sales, that they do so at a price point where success long term is impossible. We need this industry to appear stronger than AIRLINES, not weaker, and what is happening at AvantAir may just make more owners question the reliability of our collective product....

 

[glasspilot]

There is ZERO doubt that AvantAir does in fact compete with NJA. I've seen many former owners getting into their aircraft.

That said no one wants to see this instability. It would be far better if we were all growing. However growth has been stagnant and decline for how many years now? Too many...

You can bet that NJA sales people are working overtime trying to,exploit those deep Berkshire Hathaway pockets. It was proven in the not so distant past, that WB was indeed willing to hold up the financial end during crisis. For someone who's time is worth a substantial amount, there really is no operator backed to such a degree as NJA.

Perhaps AvantAir is indicative of the greater downturn, willing to offer a product at a substantial discount, to those that see dollars before anything else? My question is, if this is a shutdown, what operator will be next? These aren't isolated financials at AvantAir. There are more than a few with slim financial backing.

Like I said, I'm not gloating, I'm concerned with the industry as a hole. An industry run by people who are so desperate to have increased sales, that they do so at a price point where success long term is impossible. We need this industry to appear stronger than AIRLINES, not weaker, and what is happening at AvantAir may just make more owners question the reliability of our collective product....

Typo or Freudian slip?

 

[ghostrider64]

Typo or Freudian slip?

In its entirety LOL

 

[BEfly]

Furlough letters now

 

[Pervis]

All the best folks.

 

[B314Clipper]

Clearwater's Avantair voluntarily grounds its fleet of planes for safety reasons

By Jamal Thalji, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Saturday, October 27, 2012



Avantair shut down its fleet this week after one of its Piaggo P180 planes lost a left tail elevator sometime before it landed at a Nevada airport in July.



CLEARWATER — Avantair, a company that offers customers the chance to own shares of private planes at a fraction of the cost of buying their own jet, grounded its entire fleet after one of its aircraft lost its left tail elevator flying on the other side of the country in July.

The decision to halt all flight operations also led the company to furlough a significant number of its 500 employees while experts perform a "nose to tail" safety inspection of each plane and review maintenance records.

Avantair, which operates its "fractional ownership" business model out of St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport, said it voluntarily stood down its fleet of nearly 60 Piaggio Avanti planes in coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration.

The July incident sparked an investigation that led Avantair to stand down select aircraft on Saturday for inspection. Then, on Wednesday, management decided to ground the entire fleet. The company did not say if a specific issue with that model of plane led to that decision.

"For the past week, we have been undertaking extensive inspections of our fleet and our operating procedures," said Avantair's CEO, Steven Santo, in a prepared statement.

The company said it expects to resume flights in the coming week and will bring back employees when it starts flying again. But the company did not say how many workers have been or will be furloughed in the mean time.

Its fractional ownership business model allows customers to buy shares of the company's private planes so they can fly where they want when they want to. The company has 3,000 to 4,000 flights a month, and a 2010 Tampa Bay Times article put the price of a 2 1/2 hour flight to New York at about $6,500.

But the company's stock price has taken a beating since it was $1.35 in November. On Friday it opened at 18 cents, fell to 10 cents, then closed at 20 cents.

The incident that led Avantair to shut down its entire operation took place on July 28. According to a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board, a Piaggio P180 took off from Camarillo Airport in California, picked up two passengers in San Diego, then landed at Henderson Executive Airport in Nevada.

After landing in Nevada, the report said, crew members inspected the plane and discovered the left elevator missing from the tail. The elevator helps control the plane's pitch, allowing the pilots to aim the nose.

Two crew members and two passengers aboard the plane were not injured. The crew noticed nothing unusual during the San Diego leg of the flight, the NTSB said, but the captain reported needing to use more back pressure on the flight controls to land normally in Nevada.

The NTSB report said that the Piaggio P180 had been flying without the left tail elevator at least since it took off that day from Camarillo. Airport personnel there found the elevator near a runway on July 31. The plane was repaired and back in the air days later.

Avantair said it hired safety expert Nick Sabatini, a former FAA official, to oversee the review. Most of the fleet has been recalled to Clearwater for inspection, a company spokesman said. Other planes are being inspected around the nation.

Avantair said it's the only fractional operator that uses Piaggio's rear-facing, turbo-propped planes, which can approach the speeds of conventional business jets while burning less fuel.

The company said it is in touch with its customers about the situation but did not say if it was purchasing commercial flights or chartering private jets to accommodate them.

Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Jamal Thalji can be reached at [email protected] or (813) 226-3404.

 

[Club ORD FO]

So whats going on with the "furlough." It is just a day by day thing until the operation is back up an running?

 

[CALRepublic]

So whats going on with the "furlough." It is just a day by day thing until the operation is back up an running?

Even management doesn't know the answer to that, they're coming up new ideas as they go. They're improvising, there is no other way.

 

[exagony]

Good luck guys...

 

[fugazi]

Found this little ditty on another forum..interesting read!

Not surprised a bit about the maintenance. They've always had bad maintenance. Most of the pilots there don't know it. I've spent enough time in the shop and dealing with the maintenance side of the house to have seen it, though. I've personally seen falsification of maintenance paperwork on numerous occasions at Avantair, as well as pressure to fly unairworthy aircraft. Improper repairs. A gear door that was falling off. Two occasions of lightening strikes and electrical discharges in which the crew was ordered to fly the aircraft (and refused)...on one of those occasions the Chief Pilot came out and flew it instead. The engines had to be removed and torn down, the propellers needed overhaul, the airframe needed degaussed, and holes were burned through the airframe all over.

I once picked up one of their airplanes from maintenance, flew it on a short leg, and landed with sixteen major squawks. The company accused me of performing "shirt-pocket maintenance." I asked what that meant, and I was told I'd obviously been flying the airplane for a week, and hiding all the squawks. When I pointed out that I picked up the airplane at one maintenance base (after completing an inspection and being released as airworthy) and flew it on one leg to another maintenance base, where I grounded the airplane. They tried to make the paperwork disappear.

I found one of electrical tape hiding an annunciator that was illuminated full time, with a bogus MEL sign off. The FAA got hold of that one, threatened to yank the company 135 certificate. The mechanic who signed it off got fired, and the base closed. The Director of Operations quit (reportedly had a nervous breakdown), and the Director of Maintenance, who wasn't qualified, was replaced.

I was threatened with termination twice for "flying through thunderstorms" that resulted in "lightening strikes," although neither time did we go near a storm. Turns out that the company had the airplane repainted and didn't bother bonding the control surfaces, nor were the discharge wicks bonded to the airframe. Same airframe both times. The company blamed me...I didn't find out about it until later, when talking with someone in maintenance.

I was in the shop one day when the police arrived to take away one of the senior mechanics, in handcuffs.

We had an airplane get so hot due to a bleed leak that the passenger, a wealthy owner, took off his clothes and lay on the floor to escape the heat. All of his christmas gifts melted. I grounded the airplane. The company demanded I fly it. That happened twice.

When I went through FSI, the instructor asked if anyone in the class had experienced any emergencies. Every person replied yes, and we took a list of what we'd collectively experienced...every emergency and abnormal in the book, just in that small group, in a one year period. I had an engine failure, rapid depressurization, gear failure, brake failures, total electrical failures, and a host of other issues.

I was fired for trying to bring a union on the property...and I didn't know anything about the union...didn't find out about it until later, when Santo himself offered me my job back...and instructed me to make sure everyone knew it had nothing to do with the union. First time I'd heard about a union. They fired four people, me one of them, over that...and got the wrong people. They were so hot to trot over it that they fabricated a list of seventeen false charges (my favorite was that I'd "bent a flap in half over a GPU"--didn't happen, like all the charges). Complete fabrications. it's the way they operate, though.

Their training bond, offered after people had already quit their other jobs and were in class for initial...very poor form. Eighteen grand and not even a type rating?

Refused a flight once due to level 5 thunderstorms in a wide meso complex and squall, and received threatening calls from the Chief Pilot every 15 minutes thereafter pressuring me to take the flight, demanding I prove why I didn't, etc.

Called once after being debriefed by the last crew to fly the airplane, to enquire about the squawk: brakes failed and an unreliable engine, and a prop that wouldn't feather. The response was the Director of Operations on the line, saying "we don't need people like you flying the airplane." He called back the previous crew, one of them who was on his way out of the country to get married, and demanded that he fly the airplane to a maintenance base. I was told to ride in back and let the previous pilot fly the airplane single pilot. That sort of treatment wasn't unusual.

We lost an engine leaving Greenville, after a total loss of oil pressure. We notified ATC that we were returning. ATC made a declaration of emergency for us, without our request, and rolled the rescue trucks. I was admonished by the company for rolling the trucks and told not to do it again.

During training in the airplane, while IMC, on an approach, the check airman shut off the generator on one engine then failed the other engine, leaving us without power. V1 cuts in a Part 23 airplane, direction to use full reverse in a crosswind on one engine following a single-engine approach, and other gems were viewed multiple times during training.

On more than a few occasions I turned in squawk lists and made photocopies. When the airplane was released from maintenance, I compared the paperwork and found it doctored.

Just the tip of the iceberg. The Piaggio was a fun airplane to fly, and I met some great guys out on the line, but I wasn't at all impressed with the "dispatchers" and schedulers, and wasn't one bit impressed with the maintenance.

I saw engines pulled off the airframe and laid on the floor (no stand), crushing oil tubes. I participated in the shop in inspections, and was told I didn't need maintenance publications, and was dressed-down for requesting to see the microfiche or mx pubs on a disc. I requested a torque wrench, and was told I didn't need one; I was told to use a "calibrated elbow," and that since I would fly the aircraft, I ought to use whatever torque I felt comfortable using "because it's your butt."

When handed a 100 hour kit once, with all the seals, filters, and o-rings for one engine, I was told to perform the inspections on the left engine. I laid each seal in it's wrapping out, and finally obtained an illustrated parts catalog for the engine. I checked off each seal, and wrote on the wrapper it's application. Then as each seal was removed from the airplane, I matched it against the new one, and lined it up along the table; one off, one on, each accounted, each verified by part number and comparison. I was told they'd never seen that done.

I saw tool boxes full of tools piled in each drawer. No shadowing of boxes. No tool accountability. I didn't see calibrated tools, and I didn't see very good tools, either.

I'm sorry for those who have been furloughed, and I hope they find something quickly. I'm not at all surprised that Avantair has found themselves in this position. It's a shame, too, because there's no reason why the aircraft can't be better maintained and better managed. The Piaggios are actually quite fragile aircraft...small wiring, lots of wires ganged into single terminal ends, far more splices in wire runs than allowed in US produced aircraft, no antiskid, etc...the aircraft need more maintenance than they've had in the past, and the FAA has come calling more than once before. I know...they've called me for details when I got stuck with the company's failings or falsification.

Hopefully Avantair will get their act together and fulfill their obligation to the clients and to the employees as soon as possible.

 

[jetmaster727]

Nice post you idiot! If they had any hope with the FAA you just screwed it. Way to help your brothers!

 

[fugazi]

Nice post you idiot! If they had any hope with the FAA you just screwed it. Way to help your brothers!

Yes, we should hide the facts! Hope for the best..maybe bring down the whole frac industry to this level? I'm sure the FAA has a good idea what going on. Hence the shut down!The FAA rules of are written for your safety and for that of your team. They are not flexible, nor am I. Either obey them or you are history. Is that clear?

 

[MJPilot]

We're working to get out fleet back in the air ASAP. Things are still being worked out... As of this morning, we're still a long way from going under.

:bomb: I guess a furlough is better than a total shut down.

I wonder how AAIR stock is going to react.

 

[Paradoxus]

Hence the shut down!

Exactly right. Hense the need for "Jetmaster727" to shut down his whore-mouth!

 

[fugazi]

:bomb: I guess a furlough is better than a total shut down.

I wonder how AAIR stock is going to react.

Good thing they offered stock options..sell!sell!Mortimer sell!

 

[Paradoxus]

Nice post you idiot! If they had any hope with the FAA you just screwed it. Way to help your brothers!

Are you condoning the concealment/whitewash of facts, or the shady maintenance/management policies observed here, sir?

When did self-disclosure equate betrayal of one's brethren workers?

*spit*

 

[Capt. JD]

Are you condoning the concealment/whitewash of facts, or the shady maintenance/management policies observed here, sir?

When did self-disclosure equate betrayal of one's brethren workers?

*spit*

Well said... The aviation industry cannot afford this type of culture!