Ex-employees question Gulfstream safety

Zach White

Gulfstream Airlines is preparing to take over Essential Air Service for Montana in a little over a month, but a group of former employees is not sure that's a good thing.

Two former captains, Kenneth Edwards and Patrick Hart, a former lead mechanic, Dan Brisco and a former crew scheduler, Mary Hebig, have signed a letter sent to U. S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood that conveys their concerns about Gulfstream expanding its service.

"As a former captain for Gulfstream International Airlines, I believe that this matter was not given proper due diligence by DOT or the Federal Aviation Administration, " the letter, penned by Edwards, says.

According to Bruce Hicks, a spokesman for Gulfstream, the investigation is over and raised no safety concerns.

"The FAA investigation was about events that went on years ago around record-keeping and interpretation, not flight safety," Hicks said.

The Havre Daily News' coverage of the service change caught Edwards' attention, so he included the paper in his list of co-recipients of the letter, including the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, CNN, Bloomberg and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who recently proposed eliminating Essential Air Service.

A month before sending the letter, Edwards, who along with Patrick Hart is engaged in civil litigation with the airline that is held up while the airline is operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy, sent a 38-page document he said is the result of a 2009 FAA investigation that mirrors concerns he has had since working for the airline. Edwards joined the airline more than a decade ago, but left to fly in his native Arizona.

He rejoined the airline, as a captain, he said, in 2007, when at which time he started seeing activity he had problems with.

"I was hired as a captain in June of 2007, and I immediately noticed that they were doing things that were unsafe, illegal and against federal regulations, " Edwards said. "They weren't asking, they were ordering me to do these things. "

Edwards claims that the airline changed the hours worked by employees, from pilots to flight crew to dispatchers, and improperly logged equipment use on pieces of the aircraft that can only be used for a certain length of time, according to federal regulation.

He said that one time he brought a plane in for inspection after a flight, the mechanic there was working alone and told him frankly that he didn't have enough time to do what takes a team of mechanics several hours to do, so the mechanic would just say he did the checks and that everything was fine.

While seeing these things, Edwards said that he, and other Gulfstream staff, felt they couldn't go to anyone about it, as local regulators were "very, very cozy" with the airline.

"There was no reason for me to tell them something that they knew but chose to ignore, " Edwards said.

He also claimed to have once been told by a federal regulator, "I'm not here to take money out of (former owner of Gulfstream) Tom Cooper's pocket. "

Less than six months after starting to fly with Gulfstream, Edwards put in his two-weeks notice, intending to resign and head back to Arizona on Dec. 12.

Two days before his time would have been over, Edwards said, he was fired.

According to Edwards, he was flying from Palm Beach to Tampa when they nearly collided with another plane, but didn't, thanks to the plane's Traffic Collision Avoidance System.

Later in that flight, the TCAS stopped working.

When he landed, Edwards said he told Gulfstream's dispatchers that they needed to fix the TCAS and get him a new airplane with a functioning one.

He was told that he would fly the same plane again, and the mechanics would fix it later.

Edwards refused.

"There are places in the country I would have no problem flying without a TCAS, " Edwards said. "There are other areas where I would not fly without a TCAS, and that was one of them. "

Bruce Hicks, a spokesman for Gulfstream Airlines, heard it differently.

Hicks was hired by Gulfstream from the Alliant Group, a consultancy in Houston that calls itself the "nation's premier provider of specialty tax services," after the complaints had been filed.

His short biography on the website of the Griffin Communications Group, a "full-service marketing communications firm, " for which he serves on the advisory board, says his 42 years of public relations experience make him "THE man to call upon for crisis or issues management. "

According to Hicks, no one could find any problem with that plane's TCAS unit.

"Even if it wasn't working, it was OK to fly without it, " Hicks said.

He also said that the situation was "some misunderstanding, " where Edwards was two days from retirement. Hicks claimed it was supposed to be Edwards' last flight for Gulfstream and didn't know why he would quit like that.

Edwards said it was not his last flight, that he had more flights scheduled for those last two days, but was fired.

Edwards also said that the mechanic may not have found an issue, but he also may not have tried that hard.

"I spoke directly to the mechanic. He told me they were going to defer it, " Edwards said. "When I suggested we change planes, a new mechanic took it out, sprayed some lubricant, and it tested fine. But it had worked on the ground before but stopped in the air. All they wanted to do was tap on it and spray some WD-40 and call it good. "

"If they didn't have duct tape and WD-40, God help them. "

Not worried about his employment with Gulfstream any more, Edwards filed a whistleblower complaint about the offenses he said he had observed.

It turned out less satisfying than he had hoped.

"I put several violations where I was ordered to violate this regulation or that regulation. I got a letter a week or so later saying they opened the investigation and they would let me know, " Edwards said. "Six weeks later I heard they closed it with no findings. "

Hicks said the airline was inspected throughout by numerous groups, and everyone agreed there was no wrongdoing.

"We investigated Kenny Edwards' complaints and we found nothing to them, " Hicks said. "So did the FAA and OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration). "

By this time Edwards had begun his lawsuit against Gulfstream with the help of Frank Mallory Shooster, an attorney in Florida.

Shooster said that the a lot of the basis of the case came out after, and was about more than Edwards' termination.

"There was also a troubling pattern where equipment would fail and yet they would Band-aid these problems instead of actually fixing them, sometimes replacing parts that are not approved by the FAA, " Shooster said.

Hicks explained that there was a point where Gulfstream was buying parts for their air conditioners that were not approved by the FAA, because they were buying them directly from the manufacturer.

According to Hicks, the FAA objected to this cost-saving measure, cutting out the middle man, and Hicks maintains that Gulfstream should still be allowed to do this.

Trying to compile information for his lawsuit, Edwards filed Freedom of Information act requests for FAA investigation reports, to see what they found out about with Gulfstream.

Though he didn't get what he wanted that way, Edwards said he got a call from his lawyer, who had received an envelope with no return address, but had been post-marked in Atlanta, where the FAA holds a major office.

In the envelope was a 38-page report, which supposedly details the FAA's investigation where records of random employees and aircraft were taken and scrutinized.

The report lists several discrepancies in several areas.

Pilots and flight crew had worked more hours than allowed.

Dispatchers were worked longer hours, which is officially allowed in special circumstances. Some dispatchers apparently were in special circumstances several times a month, for a few months in a row.

Maintenance on some of these airplanes had been deferred more than 20 times in a three-month period.

The report concludes with a recommendation to revoke Gulfstream Airlines operating license and certification, grounding their flights.

Mike Fergus, northwest regional public information officer for the FAA in Renton, Wash., didn't recognize the report, but responded with a link to a press release concerning the same case number listed on the report.

The report resulted in a proposed $1.3 million penalty.

Gulfstream ended up settling for a $550,000 fine, split over five years.

Edwards believes they won't end up having to pay any of it.

Gulfstream is in Chapter 11 status right now, which, according to Edwards' attorney, protects them from the litigation.

Shooster and Edwards are awaiting a court order to allow the cases to move forward.

Hicks said that they've done nothing wrong and took the settlement so they could just pay the fine, over minor hour adjustments, so they could move forward.

And Mickey Bowman, vice president of corporate relations for Gulfstream, is busy working to make sure the infrastructure, with fueling and maintenance contracts, in Montana is ready, so they can move forward with their regional service expansion.

Everyone is moving forward.