Help with "End Of Excalibur" memories

[VSFlightAttd]

Hi All,

Does anyone remember the series of events that lead to the demise of Excalibur? I know they were successful when they operated A320s but it all went wrong when they got DC-10s. Something about smoke in the flight deck or cabin on a flight and pax refused to re-board same a/c later. The press got hold of the story and destroyed the airlines image.

Really would appreciate help.

Cheers

[TURIN]

From memory the DC10 was a right shed that had about fifty-odd ADDs running constantly. It had a checkered history anyway!!

The straw that broke the camel's back was a windscreen change after one cracked on it's way back to MAN. The screen was changed and the aircraft dispatched only for the N1 light to come on during the TO roll. Two aborted TOs later and everyone went home waiting for the engineers to fix the snag.

A day later the outfit folded.

Shame really as they were a good lot when they had the A320s.

[cringe]

8 June 1996: Rejected takeoff from Orlando airport after smoke started billowing from the air-conditioning vents in the back of the plane. A faulty oil seal was blamed. 91 of the 346 passengers refused to re-board, some with the Valujet disaster still fresh in mind.

The incident TURIN described happened a few weeks later, on 23 June.

(Source: news reports)

[Flap15Geardown]

I worked for Excalibur from beginning to end - great company, great people sadly not in contact with many of them now.

Cant remember much about the demise apart from no-one at head office wanted to go home! The A320's were sent back to the lease company (Airtours had them) and were supposed to be replaced with DC10's but I think Laker got the ones we were supposed to get hence we ended up with V2 LEH (god the cogs are whirring at the moment). The DC10 had its problems first the 'smoke' incident and finally a cracked windscreen - it returned to LGW (I think) went into the hangar and the rest is history.


:)

[IB4138]

I was absolutely amazed when V2-LEH was leased, as the aircraft had a very checkered recent history before that.

Leased from Skyjet I recall.