The Guyanese operators of a luxury charter jet company in Florida were arrested yesterday after they were named in a grand jury indictment on charges of conspiracy, fraud and endangerment, connected with a crash in 2005.
Alleging a conspiracy to defraud charter flight customers, jet charter brokers and the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), a New Jersey Grand Jury charged six officials of the now defunct Ft. Lauderdale-based Platinum Jet Management with overloading their planes with fuel and falsifying records to hide violations from authorities.
Those named in the 23-count indictment are: Michael Brassington, 35, the President, Chief Executive Officer and chief pilot of the company; his brother, Paul Brassington, 29, company vice-president; Andre Budhan, 42, a managing member; Joseph Singh, 37, the director of charters; Brien McKenzie, 42, director of maintenance; and Francis Vieira, 59, a pilot. The indictment was unsealed yesterday and the Brassingtons, Budhan and McKenzie were arrested yesterday morning in Ft. Lauderdale. Meanwhile, arrest warrants were issued for Vieira and Singh. All counts in the indictment carry a maximum five-year prison sentence, except for endangering the safety of an aircraft – for which Michael Brassington is charged – which carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence on conviction.
On February 2, 2005, a Platinum Jet operated flight from Teterboro Airport, New Jersey skidded off the runway and eventually crashed into a warehouse, causing a fire. “The fuel loading was the primary contributing factor in the crash,” U.S Attorney Ralph Marra was quoted as saying by multiple news sources yesterday. “It is astounding – and criminal – that owners and operators of jet aircraft would repeatedly engage in such a dangerous game with passengers and airplanes loaded to the brim with jet fuel. What this indictment alleges is an anything goes attitude by the defendants to get their planes in the air and maximise profit without regard to passenger safety or compliance with basic safety regulations.”
In the indictment, seen by Stabroek News, Marra accuses the men of “routinely undertaking and concealing dangerous fuelling and weight-distribution practices” over a three-year period, in or about November 2002 to in or about March 2005. Michael Brassington, McKenzie and Vieira are accused of filing paperwork on numerous occasions that fraudulently claimed that the planes being flown by Platinum out of Teterboro were up to 1,000 pounds lighter than their actual weight, in violation of FAA regulations.
It is alleged that Michael Brassington would instruct the company’s pilots to maximise charter profits by “tankering” fuel, involving loading extra fuel on the aircraft at locations where Platinum Jet had contracts for comparatively cheap fuel prices, like Teterboro Airport. The men would falsify FAA-required weight-and-balance graphs to conceal the weight configuration. Pilots were also instructed to do the same. Such “tankering,” according to the indictment, caused the aircraft to exceed their maximum allowable take-off and landing weights and forward Centre of Gravity (COG) limits, thereby endangering the safety of the aircraft during takeoff, flight and landing.
Additionally, the men are accused of having solicited charter flight customers for Platinum Jet using charter brokers, misrepresenting that it was acting in compliance with safety standards. In this regard, they said that the company’s on-demand commercial flights were actually non-commercial flights, which it was not certified to fly. During the period listed in the indictment, they are reported to have flown 85 such flights for more than US$1M in compensation. They are also accused of using unqualified pilots who failed to meet the FAA requirements and the indictment alleges that the captain of the ill-fated 2005 Teterboro flight was not certified to fly the commercial flights. He was not, however, charged.
