US Federal charges have been brought against five people connected with Platinum Jet Management (PJM) a business flight chartering company that has ceased to trade. The charges are related to alleged deliberate violations of Federal Aviation Administration regulations that led directly to a 2 February 2005 crash at Teterboro airport, New Jersey during an attempted take-off.
Those charged include five PJM executives and a former company pilot.
The US National Transportation Safety Board's accident report criticised the Federal Aviation Administration for its failure to exercise safety oversight in the Part 135 "air taxi" on-demand charter sector, because PJM was not licensed to carry out such operations.
In the accident, a Platinum Bombardier Challenger 600 was destroyed when it failed to take off because its centre of gravity was so far forward the crew could not rotate it. It overran the runway and ploughed across a six-lane highway into buildings. The NTSB said the cause was the failure of the flightcrew to "appropriately determine the airplane's weight and balance characteristics for take-off".
The aircraft was flying under the Part 135 operating certificate of Darby Aviation, and the NTSB says: "PJM pilots routinely improperly modified airplanes' weight and balance forms, using a variety of invalid airplane empty weights to ensure that the form indicated that the airplane was operating within its limitations."
It adds: "Although FAA personnel reviewed Darby's record, they did not ensure that PJM's airplanes were operated and maintained in accordance with Darby's company requirements, or that charter trips flown by PJM were controlled by Darby."
The NTSB had drawn similar conclusions in its report on a November 2004 icing-related Challenger 601 fatal crash during take-off at Montrose, Colorado. The NTSB said the chartered aircraft "was registered to Hop-a-Jet, and operated by Air Castle doing business as Global Aviation Glo-Air Flight 73", and the client did not know which company was responsible for conduct of the service.
Source: Flight International
