skyking1976 said:
The whole reason for the second accident wasn't an approach to stall maneuver. Key Lime used to teach full stalls in their airplanes despite what their Part 135 training manual says. I know several people that can corroborate that. Whether or not it exists in the Part 141 training syllabus is irrelevant. Key Lime Air and Flights Inc. are separate entities. Yes, the same guy owns both, but they are operated under two different sets of rules and two different FAR's govern training curriculum.
The fact still remains that the approach-to-stall maneuver was in the cirriculum of both Key Lime Air and (then) Key Lime Flights. After that accident, the maneuver dissapeared altogether. There are no more banked approaches to stall taught at Flights, Inc. or Key Lime Air. That is a FACT, not governed by FARs or anything. The choice was made after the accident to remove the maneuver from BOTH training manuals. As for them teaching full stalls in spite of the training manual, once again, this is the failure of the Instructor Pilot, not the company as a whole. If he was not following the manual and he did not report to the Chief Pilot or those responsible with the FAA that they were doing non-approved maneuvers, then that's the fault of the pilots is it not?
As to the abundance of choices in feeder service for UPS, the contracts go to the lowest bidder. Key Lime has such a large volume of aircraft and pays their pilots so poorly they can afford to under-cut the competition. Superior's gear up landing had nothing to do with it. If accidents were criteria for dismissal as a UPS feeder, Key Lime would have been finished late last year.
And how do you know that for sure? Knowing the persons in Denver responsible for overseeing the Feeder Operations from the UPS side of things, I'd have to disagree because Superior not only had MORE aircraft available, but they were underbidding Key Lime by a fair margin. The only other problem that was routine is that Superior refused to pay their fuel bill on more than one occasion, which resulted in us (ASIG) refusing to fuel their aircraft a couple of times. Key Lime, however, always paid the bill in a timely manner.
Noone makes comments like these as an arbitrary statement. Trust me when I say that these folks (including myself) have done their research. Maybe you should do some more...
I've done plenty of research. I think that knowing a good chunk of their crews, flying with Flights, Inc (which has more than one Key Lime Air pilot there as an instructor), being around down there for 2 YEARS fueling their aircraft on a nearly daily basis and dealing with their operations on a daily basis, I think I'd have some first hand experience on what kind of company they are.
Also, I'd remind you AGAIN, that the two ACCIDENTS were due to pilots disregarding the manuals. Now, you can interpret that any way you want, but from an FAA point-of-view (considering that 2 fatal accidents in one year would result in a review of their Certification) the highest person that's making the company unsafe is the Chief Pilot if he's not making sure that the Instructor Pilots under him are not training by the manual, because that's HIS responsibility.
BTW, there are more than 2 additonal incidents on the NTSB database. There was the 2 Metros hitting each other in December 2003, one had a nose gear collapse at Grand Junction in Novermber 2003, and a fourth aircraft (N787KL) ran off the runway in Montana on a snow and ice covered runway when both right main landing gear tires blew out on landing. I have pictures of the two that collided at DEN up on Jetphotos.net. I also have pictures of the Superior bird on Jetphotos.net. Just look up Metroliner and Denver, and you'll find them.
