When NBAA hired Shelley Longmuir less than a year ago, the board of directors said the new president would raise the association to a new level. Apparently there was disagreement between Longmuir and the board on just what that next level should be.

On April 1, the board accepted Longmuir’s resignation following a regularly scheduled three-day meeting in Washington. At the same time, more

Three Italian aviation officials and an air traffic controller have been sentenced to jail terms of between six and eight years after being convicted of manslaughter and negligence over the Oct. 8, 2001, fatal collision between a Cessna Citation CJ2 and a Scandinavian Airlines System McDonnell Douglas MD-87 at Milan Linate Airport. The April 16 verdict followed a recently published accident report more

In one of its longest investigations into a general aviation accident, the NTSB released its final report last month on the Oct. 10, 2000, crash of a Canadian-registered Bombardier Challenger 604 during a manufacturer’s test flight at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport. The two pilots and flight engineer died as a result of injuries sustained from the accident. News of the accident traveled fast thro more

Allied Capital, a Washington, D.C.-based business development firm, last month finalized a complex, controversial $81 million deal (including closing costs) to acquire the Mercury Air Centers (FBO) division of Los Angeles-based Mercury Air Group.
Mercury Air Centers operates 20 FBOs nationwide (including the newly acquired Flight International facility at Newport News, Va.) and was one of fo more

The first prototype G160 Ranger, Grob-Werke’s second turboprop single, flew for the first time on March 29 from the company’s facility in Tussenhausen-Mattsies, Germany, about 60 miles from Munich.The seven-seat, Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-42A-powered G160 is an expansion of the four-seat G140TP, which first flew in December 2002 and is expected to obtain certification late this year. Eve more

It is good news that the joint program and development office (JPDO), formed recently at the direction of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, is crafting a national policy on air transportation. Many voices, among them mine when I served as president of NBAA, called for a vision and mission statement by the U.S. government that identifies air transport in all its forms as an enabling technolog more

Photos surface on the Internet occasionally that are too strong just to file away. The story these pictures tell is the collision on January 16 this year between a Beech Baron B55 and a Cessna 180K near Tehachapi, Calif. (NTSB ID LAX04 FA095A/B). The Baron pilot, cruise-climbing between 5,500 and 6,500 feet at the moment of impact with the Cessna’s right landing gear, survived the collision and more

Former NBAA president Jack Olcott weighed in on the NBAA contretemps with a letter sent to member representatives. In it, he said Robert Warren’s letter reflects a “deficiency of knowledge” of the organization. Olcott, who served as president of NBAA from May 1992 until Shelly Longmuir succeeded him last July, challenged several of the “troubling management issues” that Warren enumerated more

Belgian charter operator Flying Group’s takeover of Cap Camarat Business Jet (CCBJ) furthers the operator’s “ambition to become an important player in European business aviation,” a spokesman told AIN. With the combination of the two companies, he said, “the present air travel activities of Flying Group, which includes the co-ownership of business aircraft, brokering and commercia more

Twin Jet, the largest French operator of Beechcraft 1900 turboprops since the demise last year of R-lines, continues its growth following the addition in March of two new regional routes. By year-end it expects to add at least two more links.

Founded in the southern city of Marseille, Twin Jet specializes in business-oriented cross-country routes. It started operations in March 2002 wit more