N380UA
3rd Sep 2001, 16:44
This just in from Avweb....
TOO MANY PASSENGERS, TOO MUCH WEIGHT...
As family members continue to mourn and attorneys search for the next
deep pocket, there are additional details in the crash of the plane
carrying singer Aaliyah and her traveling companions. The Cessna 402B
that went in just off the Marsh Harbour airport runway on Abaco Island
August 25 was carrying nine people though it was certified for only six
to eight. AVweb is told the C-402 was filled with 802 pounds of fuel
and 574 pounds of baggage, leaving just 805 pounds for all nine people
-- the singer's bodyguard alone is said to have weighed close to 300
pounds. According to authorities, both of the plane's engines appear
to have been working when the aircraft went down.
The Bahamian Civil Aviation Department will decide whether to press
charges against anyone and it appears there is fertile ground for
recrimination. The FAA has cited the company that chartered the flight,
Blackhawk International Airways, four times in the last four years for
such failings as not following drug-testing rules for employees.
Neither Blackhawk nor Skystream, the plane's owner, had a permit to
operate commercial charter flights in the Bahamas. Pilot Luis Antonio
Morales was not listed as the pilot on the charter's air taxi
certificate, and Morales, hired just 24 hours before the flight, was
sentenced to three years of probation on charges of crack cocaine
possession 12 days before the crash.
TOO MANY PASSENGERS, TOO MUCH WEIGHT...
As family members continue to mourn and attorneys search for the next
deep pocket, there are additional details in the crash of the plane
carrying singer Aaliyah and her traveling companions. The Cessna 402B
that went in just off the Marsh Harbour airport runway on Abaco Island
August 25 was carrying nine people though it was certified for only six
to eight. AVweb is told the C-402 was filled with 802 pounds of fuel
and 574 pounds of baggage, leaving just 805 pounds for all nine people
-- the singer's bodyguard alone is said to have weighed close to 300
pounds. According to authorities, both of the plane's engines appear
to have been working when the aircraft went down.
The Bahamian Civil Aviation Department will decide whether to press
charges against anyone and it appears there is fertile ground for
recrimination. The FAA has cited the company that chartered the flight,
Blackhawk International Airways, four times in the last four years for
such failings as not following drug-testing rules for employees.
Neither Blackhawk nor Skystream, the plane's owner, had a permit to
operate commercial charter flights in the Bahamas. Pilot Luis Antonio
Morales was not listed as the pilot on the charter's air taxi
certificate, and Morales, hired just 24 hours before the flight, was
sentenced to three years of probation on charges of crack cocaine
possession 12 days before the crash.