Southwest Aviation Inc., one of two fixed-based operators at the Las Cruces International Airport, re-started fueling services Tuesday after making upgrades to its fuel storage facilities, according to company and city officials.
City officials contend the shut-down of fueling operations was not in connection to an August 2014 crash of an air ambulance that left four people dead. A preliminary federal report from the crash determined a Southwest Aviation Inc. technician had injected the wrong type of fuel for the airplane minutes before the crash.
However, Southwest Aviation owner Hal Kading questioned the motivation and timing of the red-tagging, saying it happened about Nov. 10, when a second fix-based operator, Francis Aviation, started services for the first time at the Las Cruces International Airport. Prior to that, Southwest Aviation had been the only refueler. Kading said the company has been at the airport since 1967, and he's personally been there since 1973. The refueling operations had never previously been red-tagged.
"The reason they gave for shutting us down was we didn't meet state standards," he said. "We talked to the state inspectors, and, while it was true we didn't meet the standards, the city was fine with it up until the day Francis Aviation opened. And that's the day that they shut us off from using our fuel storage."
The required improvements — such as supports for the fuel-storage tanks and a concrete holding area to contain potential fuel spills — weren't complex, but city approval processes were lengthy, Kading said.
"We couldn't get fuel until we had them (fuel tanks) re-worked. And that took two weeks to do but months and months to get approved," he said. "I can't imagine it would take 10 months to approve a construction job that took all of a couple of weeks to build," he said.
Kading said he has no way to determine with certainty the city's motivation, but if the August 2014 plane crash wasn't a factor and "if what they're saying is correct, it goes to say that the city is not business-friendly."
"We're very happy to finally be back in business," he said. But "we're very concerned about how long it takes to get anything through the city," he said, referring to construction and inspection approvals.
Las Cruces spokesman Udell Vigil assured there was no attempt on the city's part to stall Southwest Aviation's fuel services. And the red-tagging wasn't in connection to last year's crash.
"Their bulk fuel storage tanks were not in compliance with the NMED (New Mexico Environment Department) regulations," he said. "It had nothing to do with the crash."
And now that Southwest Aviation has been re-inspected, it's free to host refueling services again, according to Vigil. The city can't restrict the number of fuel operators, who are tenants at the city-owned airport, he said.
Vigil said the city's fire department checks fuel tanks for compliance to state regulations. And the city is tasked with ensuring the airports runways are in compliance with Federal Aviation Administration standards, but the city doesn't have an oversight role over refueling operations directly.
In the months its fuel services were halted, Kading said the company has continued some operations, including renting of hangars and flight training.
Southwest Aviation also has carried out retraining for its employees and refreshed its equipment.
"We changed all the filters on the trucks and fuel storage and made sure everything was up-to-date," Kading said.
Kading said the company is keeping the employee who is believed to have made the refueling error in last year's fatal crash.
"We feel he's the safest fuel technician in the country with that on his conscience," he said.
In addition, Kading said the company has "instituted some revisions to our procedures so that the pilot, if he's not attending the fueling, has to sign to verify the grade of fuel and quantity he wants." It's also making use of so-called "duck-billed" fuel nozzles for jet fuel, which helps to avoid refueling errors, but isn't necessarily a fail-safe.
Asked if he was confident the company won't have a similar refueling error in the future, Kading replied: "We're confident it won't happen again here, with us."
As for the crash itself, "it's not anything that we're complacent about — it was just terrible," Kading said.
In August 2014, a Cessna 421C — a twin-engine, propeller-driven plane — arrived in Las Cruces about 30 minutes before the fatal crash. Records show the pilot, 29-year-old Freddy Martinez of El Paso, was in the cockpit that evening when he ordered 40 gallons of fuel from a line service technician, the federal report states. Investigators learned the airplane has been "misfueled" with jet fuel rather than the required aviation gasoline, according to the National Transportation Safety Board report. Investigators smelled jet fuel the next day at the crash scene, the report states.
Also killed in the crash were Fredrick Green, 59, a Las Cruces man being transported for cancer treatment; flight paramedic Tauren Summers, 27, of El Paso; and flight nurse Monica Chavez, 35, of Las Cruces.
Green's family has filed a lawsuit in connection to the crash.
Source: http://www.lcsun-news.com
Cessna 421 Golden Eagle, Elite Medical Air Transport LLC, N51RX
NTSB Identification: CEN14FA462
Nonscheduled 14 CFR Part 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
Accident occurred Wednesday, August 27, 2014 in Las Cruces, NM
Aircraft: CESSNA 421C, registration: N51RX
Injuries: 4 Fatal.
This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final report has been completed. NTSB investigators either traveled in support of this investigation or conducted a significant amount of investigative work without any travel, and used data obtained from various sources to prepare this aircraft accident report.
On August 27, 2014, about 1900 mountain daylight time, a Cessna Airplane Company 421C, multi-engine airplane, N51RX, was destroyed after impacting terrain during initial climb near Las Cruces International Airport (LRU), Las Cruces, New Mexico. The pilot, two medical crewmembers and one patient were fatally injured. The airplane was registered to Elite Medical Air Transport, LLC; El Paso, Texas, and was operated by Amigos Aviation, Inc.; Harlingen, Texas. Day visual meteorological conditions (VMC) prevailed at the time of the accident and an instrument flight rules (IFR) flight plan had been filed for the 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 135 air ambulance flight. At the time of the accident the airplane was departing LRU for a flight to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX), Phoenix, Arizona.
The airplane arrived LRU about 1834 to pickup a patient for a flight to PHX. The pilot was still seated in the cockpit when he gave the line service technician a verbal order for a total of forty gallons of fuel. The line service technician drove the fuel truck to the front of the airplane and refueled the airplane putting 20 gallons in each wing. The pilot then assisted the line service technician with replacing both fuel caps. They both walked into the office and the pilot signed the machine printed fuel ticket.
After departing LRU to the west a medical crewmember onboard the airplane called their medical dispatcher on a satellite telephone and reported they were returning to LRU because of a problem with smoke coming from the right engine. A witness driving westbound on the interstate highway reported the airplane was westbound and about 200 feet above ground level (agl) when he saw smoke begin to appear from the right engine. The airplane then began descending and started a left turn to the east. Another witness, driving eastbound on the interstate highway, reported the airplane was trailing smoke when it passed over him about 100 feet agl. He saw the descending airplane continue its left turn to the east and then lost sight of it. Several witnesses reported seeing the impact or hearing the sound of impact and they then immediately saw smoke or flames.
Evidence at the scene showed the airplane was generally eastbound and upright when it impacted terrain resulting in the separation of the left propeller and the separation of the right aileron. The airplane came to rest inverted about 100 feet from the initial impact point, and there was an immediate postimpact fire which consumed much of the airplane. Investigators who arrived at the scene on the day following the accident reported detecting the smell of jet fuel.
A postaccident review of refueling records and interviews with line service technicians showed that the airplane had been misfuelled with 40 gallons of Jet A fuel instead of the required 100LL aviation gasoline.
At 1855 the automated weather observing system at LRU, located about 3 miles northeast from the accident location, reported wind from 040 degrees at 5 knots, visibility of 10 miles, broken clouds at 6,500 feet, temperature 23 degrees Celsius (C), dew point 16 degrees C, with an altimeter setting of 30.16 inches of Mercury.
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