Seaplane soars again after voluntarily grounding fleet

After voluntarily grounding its fleet for about two weeks, the Key West Seaplane Adventures took to the skies again on Friday.

Company mechanics began inspecting and conducting maintenance on the company’s two planes after one of the two had a mechanical failure in the plane’s struts and landing gear while taxing down the runway at Key West International Airport earlier this month. No one was injured in the incident.

One of the planes has been inspected and repaired and began operating again on Friday. The second plane will be grounded for an indefinite period of time as a specialist needs to work on the plane’s float, said Peter Green, who manages the company in Key West.

The planes are dealing with one of the harshest environments, being exposed to “humidity and salt water,” Green said.

“They are being maintained all of the time,” Green said.

Key West Seaplane Adventures has been the sole provider of seaplane service to Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas for the past six years and has operated without incident prior to this month, Green said. 

Each of the company’s two planes conduct four round-trip flights a day carrying about 10 people per trip, so voluntarily grounding the fleet was expensive.

“You have to put safety before money,” Green said.

Original article can be found here:  http://keysnews.com