The Players-Santa Barbara Aerospace (Applicant for STC&Certified IFEN,sr111)



A poster on the sr111 board said:

"In November of 1998, 2 months after the crash of Swissair 111, Santa
Barbara Aerospace 'surrendered' their Designated
Alteration Station (DAS) certificate to the
FAA. Think about it. Surrendering their DAS would have been
the kiss of death for Santa Barbara Aerospace.
Certainly SBA knew this. And the FAA would know it too.
Especially if SBA were (truly) experiencing any sort of
financial difficulties beforehand. SBA had the
status of being one of only 30 DAS stations, so their
FAA certification was probably crucial for attracting
much of their present and future business. Perhaps
it's no surprise then, that within the year, SBA filed
for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. So why would SBA
give up something like this so easily? Wouldn't most
companies in their position argue that the investigation
wasn't even finished yet? In the Wojnar/Evans
interview, the discussion of SBA surrendering their DAS
certificate reads almost like it was an act of
goodwill:http://www.aviationtoday.com/reports/wojnar.htm
Evans: Is
SBA still a DAS? Wojnar: No. Evans: When
were they cutoff. Wojnar: They cut themselves off
by surrendering their DAS certificate. Evans:
When did they do that? Dorr: They moved, didn’t
they? From Santa Barbara to Santa Monica or something
like that? Wojnar: They also moved. Even that would
make it go away. I can get the date on that, I don’t
have that handy.I think that for SBA to surrender their DAS only two
months after the crash is extremely significant. That
means that the FAA knew almost immediately WHERE the
problem was, and that SBA knew that they had screwed
up...big time. This is like a boss allowing an employee to
quit one minute before firing him. Compared to
items in the investigation like mylar insulation,
kapton wiring, checklist procedures, the SEAS switch,
IFEN installation, etc, the IFEN certification stands
out because of the possibility that there was willful
wrongdoing. I hope for the FAA's sake, that
'surrender' isn't another word for 'arrangement'."

http://www.aviationtoday.com/reports/wojnar.htm

FAA to review its certification process

by Chuck Taylor
Seattle Times aerospace reporter

The Federal Aviation Administration will review how it oversees commercial-airplane modifications after discovering a design flaw in the in-flight entertainment system of a Swissair jetliner that crashed last year.
John Hickey, the new manager of the FAA's Transport Airplane Directorate, which is based in Renton, said the FAA doesn't believe certification of post-factory work is lax.
But the agency will launch a "clean-sheet look" at how it delegates authority to what are called designated alteration stations, Hickey said yesterday.
There are about 30 designated alteration stations in the country. They are authorized, after demonstrating an understanding of regulations and certain organizational skills, to issue supplemental type certificates in the name of the FAA.
A supplemental type certificate is a permit to modify an airplane in a specific way. Such modifications are common and range from the installation of electronics to the conversion of an airplane from passenger to cargo use.
The FAA commonly delegates inspection and certification authority to industry employees because the agency doesn't have enough people to oversee all the manufacturing and modification of aircraft.
Hundreds of supplemental type certificates are issued every year. Designated FAA representatives, employed by manufacturers, even certify new airplanes as they leave the factory.
In the case of modifications, FAA employees approve development plans and examine design and test data. But authorized non-FAA engineers do most of the on-site work.
"I think we've done a great job" of overseeing the work of FAA designees, Hickey said. "We've had little or no problems with the system at all."
The system called the In-Flight Entertainment Network on the Swissair plane, however, is a noteworthy exception, Hickey said.
It was installed by a designated alteration station, Santa Barbara Aerospace of California, under a supplemental type certificate it issued to itself.
The company oversaw installation of the system, which provides audio and video to passenger seats, on 15 jets. Swissair was the only customer.
The system drew attention after the Sept. 2, 1998, crash of Swissair Flight 111, a Boeing MD-11, off the coast of Nova Scotia.
Canadian investigators believe the accident was related to smoke in the cockpit and heat-damaged wiring found in the wreckage.
No cause has been determined, and the entertainment system has not been implicated. But the investigation revealed that the system's power could not easily be cut off in the event of an emergency.
The system's power could be disabled only by a circuit breaker. Pilots who fly the MD-11 expect most nonessential cabin systems to be shut down by a different switch.
That fact prompted the FAA on Tuesday to issue an airworthiness directive banning the use of the entertainment system. The safety order called the system incompatible with MD-11 emergency procedures in the event of fire or smoke.
Hickey said an electrical circuit different from other nonessential systems was used because Santa Barbara Aerospace was not familiar with the MD-11's design philosophy. The company surrendered its FAA designation after the review.
The certification review also revealed problems at the FAA, he said.
"In this particular case I think our office (in Los Angeles) probably needed a closer relationship with Santa Barbara," Hickey said.
"There's no information or data that suggest that this problem exists outside that one case," Hickey said.
However, a review of designated alteration stations will be completed sometime next year and could result in new policies, he said.
Because there are no U.S.-registered aircraft with the Santa Barbara Aerospace system installed, the ban of the entertainment system has little impact. The FAA has no jurisdiction overseas, and Swissair deactivated the system on its planes shortly after the crash.
The action ensures, however, that if foreign-flagged planes are sold to operators in this country, the system could not be used, and no new systems of that type can be installed in this country.
Chuck Taylor's phone-message number is 206-464-2465.

http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/d isplay?slug=swis&date=19990930

Even before the sr111 tragedy, SBA was having some problems:

The Federal Aviation Administration is proposing
a $300,000 civil penalty against Santa Barbara Aerospace
of Goleta, Calif., for an alleged undisclosed
shipment of hazardous materials. FAA alleges
that on or about April 15, 1997, Santa Barbara
Aerospace knowingly offered a package containing seven
metal canister oxygen generators to Eagle USA Air
Freight, an indirect air carrier, for shipment to
Continental Airlines in Houston, Texas. The shipment was
carried on a passenger-carrying aircraft, Continental
flight number 190 from Los Angeles to
Houston. The oxygen canisters had plastic safety
caps installed, were wrapped in fiberboard, and secured with
tape. Oxygen generators are designated as hazardous
materials by Department of Transportation regulations
and are prohibited from being transported or may
not be offered for transportation as cargo
on passenger-carrying aircraft. The shipment was not accompanied by
a Shipper's Declaration for
Dangerous Goods. The Federal Aviation Administration is proposing
a $300,000 civil penalty against Santa Barbara Aerospace of Goleta, Calif., for an alleged undisclosed shipment of hazardous materials. FAA alleges that on or about April 15, 1997, Santa Barbara Aerospace knowingly offered a package containing seven metal canister oxygen generators to Eagle USA Air Freight, an indirect air carrier, for shipment to Continental Airlines in Houston, Texas. The shipment was
carried on a passenger-carrying aircraft, Continental flight number 190 from Los Angeles to
Houston. The oxygen canisters had plastic safety
caps installed, were wrapped in fiberboard, and secured with
tape. Oxygen generators are designated as hazardous materials by Department of Transportation regulations and are prohibited from being transported or may
not be offered for transportation as cargo
on passenger-carrying aircraft. The shipment was not accompanied by
a Shipper's Declaration for Dangerous Goods.

( USA Today ) John Bacon; Robert Davis; Jonathan
T. Lovitt; Doug Levy; 05-16-1997 The
Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday it will
require airlines to install smoke detectors and fire
suppression systems in cargo holds of aircraft within three
years, two years sooner than carriers had promised to
make the changes. The safety effort began a year ago,
after ValuJet Flight 592 exploded. All 110 people
aboard were killed. Officials say the pilots did not
know the cargo hold was ablaze until flames broke
through the cabin floor. The FAA also
identified Santa Barbara Aerospace, of California, as the
maintenance firm that packaged oxygen generators carried
illegally on a Continental Airlines flight last month. The
generators were banned from airline cargo after a set burned
on the fatal ValuJet flight. The firm says it is
cooperating with federal investigators.-- Robert Davis

Calif. firm takes responsibility for shipping canisters on Continental
By SCOTT LINDLAW
Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A jet maintenance firm said Thursday that it may have illegally shipped oxygen canisters on a Continental Airlines passenger flight last month.
Robert Chickering, president of Santa Barbara Aerospace, said his firm sent a four-crate shipment of aircraft parts by truck from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles. Continental then flew the crates to Houston in the plane's cargo hold.
The Federal Aviation Administration has said the flight took place on April 15, while the airline has said it was a day later.
Chickering refused to comment beyond his prepared statement, which didn't specify whether the oxygen generators were part of the shipment.
But when asked by phone whether his firm was acknowledging possible responsibility for what he called ''the purported incident,'' he answered, ''Yes.''
The FAA and Continental said earlier this week they were conducting investigations. Chickering said his firm was cooperating.
No one at Santa Barbara Aerospace has been disciplined, he said.
Continental reported that seven oxygen generators were illegally stowed in the cargo area of a DC-10 during last month's flight. The generators feed masks that drop into planes' passenger areas during emergencies, and are installed above the cabin. They were found 10 days after the flight.
The canisters were capped and their firing pins were removed, making escape of the gas unlikely, Continental spokeswoman Karla Villalon said.
Such canisters were banned from passenger planes' cargo holds shortly after ValuJet Flight 592 crashed into the Florida Everglades in May 1996, killing all 110 people on board.
Investigators believe the ValuJet crash was caused by a fire fueled by poorly packaged oxygen generators.
On Wednesday, one day after disclosure of the Continental incident, the Air Transport Association announced that airlines will begin installing fire suppression equipment in some cargo holds, perhaps as early as this fall.
On Thursday, members of a House panel grilled federal regulators on the issue of smoke detectors and firefighting equipment in cargo holds, with one congressman calling delays in installing such gear ''pathetic.''
The DC-10 that illegally carried the oxygen tanks was equipped with smoke detection and suppression equipment, as are 49 other planes in Continental's fleet, Villalon said.
http://www.lubbockonline.com/news/051697/calif.htm

After the sr111 tragedy, SBA was diverting employee’s contributions for benefits in order to pay other employees:

Firm diverted employees' contributions for benefits
DAN EVANS RIVERSIDE
Santa Barbara Aerospace
chairman Robert Chickering admitted under oath on Thursday
that the aircraft maintenance company took money to be
used to pay employee benefits to pay other
employees. Chickering made the revelation in a U.S. Trustees hearing,
where he had to face about 60 creditors and answer
their questions. Former Santa Barbara Aerospace
employee Vince Cirrito asked Chickering about what
happened to money employees had deducted from their
paychecks for Blue Cross of California medical
benefits. Chickering said the medical insurance hadn't been paid by
the company from May until it laid off everyone in
August. http://www.sbcsun.com/news/10081999/firm.htm

Link no longer works.

Bankruptcy casts a pall on SB airport Santa Barbara Aerospace Inc.'s emergency filing for
bankruptcy and its sudden layoff of about 230 employees sent
a shock wave through former Norton Air Force Base
last week. The ripple effect could be felt for
a long time, as San Bernardino International
Airport continues its years-long struggle to reclaim jobs
and prestige after the base closed. The Santa
Barbara-based aircraft maintenance company, which moved onto
the base in 1996 and soon signed a 30-year lease for
four hangars, was originally touted as a savior for
efforts to convert the base to civilian use. For
the rest of this article go
to;http://www.sbcsun.com/news/08131999/bank.htm

SBA had $18 million in debts when it filed for bankruptcy

SBIA firm's filing shows $18 million in
debts DAN EVANS and MICHAEL DIAMOND Santa Barbara
Aerospace Inc.'s emergency Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition
made available Monday showed the company has debts of
nearly $18 million from a partial list of 24
creditors. But the number of creditors is expected to grow by at
least tenfold, according to the
filing. http://www.sbcsun.com/news/08101999/sbia.htm
The two
largest liabilities listed by Santa Barbara
Aerospace President Robert Chickering were a combined $13
million in a pair of pending lawsuits against the San
Bernardino-based aircraft maintenance company. Other
creditors include: The Internal Revenue Service for $1.7
million, the Inland Valley Development Agency for $500,000
and the San Bernardino Tax Collector for $202,000.

And how about this strange story?

WESTJET SUED FOR 'HIJACK' OF PLANE ( The
Calgary Sun ) BRIAN COOMBS, CALGARY SUN; 03-27-1999
WESTJET SUED FOR 'HIJACK' OF PLANE
BYLINE: BRIAN COOMBS, CALGARY SUN EDITION: Final
SECTION: Business Calgary-based WestJet
Airlines Ltd. is being sued by an American company that
claims the budget airline hijacked a plane and flew it
to Calgary to avoid paying a repair
bill. WestJet spokeswoman Siobhan Vinish said the airline did
fly the Boeing 737 back to Canada, but are guilty of
no wrong-doing. "They released the
aircraft to us," she said. The dispute
stems from work done on the aircraft by Santa Barbara
Aerospace last year. After purchasing the
plane from another company, WestJet hired SBA to make
the plane meet safety standards. SBA,
in a suit filed in California Court on March 12, is
suing WestJet for $2 million, saying that WestJet
fraudulently took the plane to get out of paying a bill of
almost $500,000. In its statement of
claim, SBA states that on the afternoon of Oct. 28,
while the aircraft was being taken for a test-flight,
the WestJet crew flew the plane back to Calgary,
stopping only to drop off SBA engineers in Santa Maria,
Calif. SBA is claiming WestJet marooned the engineers, but
Vinish said WestJet paid for the technicians' flight
back to Santa Barbara.The FBI investigated the hijacking claims by SBA, but determined it to be a civil matter, not a criminal one. Vinish claims the work done was inadequate and not completed on
time. "The aircraft was to be delivered in April. We didn't
receive it until October." WestJet filed
its own suit in a Santa Barbara, Calif. court on Dec.
4, 1998, suing SBA for $10
million. None of the allegations in either suit have been
proven in court and WestJet has yet to file a statement
of defense.

-An interesting question: Since SBA was the company that applied and gave the approval for the STC for the IFEN installed on the swissair MD-11 aircraft that crashed and the other sisterships in their fleet, were they present in Zurich when the entertainment system was installed?

-A reporter told me that the FAA was pouring over the documents to the STC just hours after the crash, long before the investigation discovered the cable to the IFEN was burnt. He found that very strange.

Excerpt from Tim van Beveren article that appeared in the Swiss publication, FACTS:

Loose ends and sloppiness

Forms were missing or filled out incorrectly. The
validation of the in-flight entertainment system was done
in a questionable way. The
installation of the IFEN into the Swissair planes was done
in the hangars of the SA subsidiary SR Technics
at the time the planes were in for maintenance.
At that time things were hectic by Swiss
standards in the showcase company. Project manager Adolf
Siegenthaler told the "SAirGroup News": The time pressure
was enormous. The development of the in-flight
entertainment system was not quite completed and right up
to the end we were not sure if we'd receive the
right parts in time. This statement proves that
at the time of the Swissair installation the
IFEN was neither completely assembled, tested, nor
certified by any regulatory agency. At the basis for
the installation and operation of the IFEN was a
so-called Supplemental Type Certificate (STC), from the
U.S company Santa Barbara Aerospace (SBA) in
California.

Questionable Certification

Santa Barbara Aerospace
even
issued the document in the place of the FAA, taking
the place as it's right arm. This is a normal
procedure in the U.S. since the FAA has delegated the
certification of such systems to private companies. But
taking that into account there are things that make no
sense. FACTS magazine had the whole certification
process investigated by experts. This
investigation brought out the fact that the airworthiness
forms were filled out wrong and stated that the
"components are not meant for installation in an
airplane". A remark which is absurd according to US
experts. Because this form would normally only be used
to facilitate the installation of components in an
airplane. The nearly 900 page file (on the whole subject)
is very questionable in other aspects. Some
forms are completely missing - e.g. the form which
certifies the first properly done installation of an IFEN
in a Swissair airplane. Without that form Santa
Barbara Aerospace should not even have issued the
certificate. They did it anyway.Checks only
after crash.This document, which carried the
official stamp of the FAA was enough for the Swiss
Federal Office of Civilian Aviation (Bazl) to allow
the operation of the IFEN. The
Bazl-office certified the legitimacy and legality of the
document without checking the process at all. The basis for the
STC certificate was not interesting to anybody
until after the crash of SR111. In the course of
the investigation of the crash, the Swiss Bazl office
awoke from its slumber. On November 13, 1998 they
revoked the validation of the certificate. On October 28
Swissair already turned off the IFEN and disconnected the
cables. Since then the Bazl office has stated that in
the future such validations "will be looked at
more closely".

And now Bouchard's words made in a speech where he seems to be concerned about a Swiss family filing criminal charges:

"The Board believes that almost everyone in the transportation community is objective and forthright. It presumes that people who work in the transportation community are generally competent, they like their work and they try to 'get things right'. That when there is a safety failure, it is likely because there was an absence of knowledge or training or understanding. Those inferences are reflected in the legislation and practices of the TSB."

http://www.ntsb.gov/events/symp%5Frec/proceedings/May_4/transcript_bouchard.htm

I wonder if he was aware of SBA's previous safety violations, etc., regarding oxygen canisters when he made those remarks?

Here is a list of creditors from the SBA bankruptcy proceeding. Now isn't this interesting? It looks as if SBA owed WESTJET $10 million dollars! See article regarding Westjet/SBA below.

WestJet airlines- $10 million

IRS - $1.7 million

IVDA - $500,000

Prudential Overlap Supply - $256,000

Blue Shield of California - $159,815

BTM - $3 million

Boeing - $715,000

Piping Design Services - $311,524

San Bernardino Tax Collector - $202,000

Employment Development Deptartment - $150,000

Edited to add:
Ok in one of the articles below I think that when they refer to liabilities, one of them is the pending lawsuit in which Westjet is trying to get their money back ($10 million dollars) because they are saying that SBA didn't do the work that they has asked them to do in a timely manner. I have no idea if this was ever resolved.

"The two
largest liabilities listed by Santa Barbara
Aerospace President Robert Chickering were a combined $13
million in a pair of pending lawsuits against the San
Bernardino-based aircraft maintenance company."

Just wanted to add the following editorial regarding SBA:

Medical Coverage Must Be a Sacred Trust
by Joe Lyons

When the Santa Barbara Aerospace company closed up in San Bernardino on Aug. 6th, they left 230 people holding the bag. It wasn’t just the pink slips, either. It turned out that the company had not been paying the medical insurance for its employees, even though that money was deducted from their paychecks. Blue Shield coverage actually ended on May 1st of this year. Blue Shield did not notify the employees because they expected the company to do so. Santa Barbara Aerospace did not notify its people because no law required it to. This has resulted in what one person said amounts to a death sentence. Incurred medical expenses are showing up in former employee’s mailboxes. Three things must be done immediately. First, grand jury indictments should be handed down to the officers of Santa Barbara Aerospace for alleged theft and misappropriation of funds. Second, Sacramento should pass laws requiring companies to tell their employees if medical coverage has stopped. And third, medical insurance companies need to establish good faith policies with workers who think their benefits are paid because they did, in fact, pay for their insurance. The IRS does this with missing withholding taxes. Insurance companies should also allow workers the same COBRA rights as anyone else, to let them roll over their coverage.

Many people take jobs today as much for the benefits as for the income, and with the cost of medical care today, the relationship between companies and employees has become very close in this area. What Santa Barbara Aerospace has done to its people is inexcusable, and while we hate to advocate more laws, legislation and court action in this kind of case are more than justified.

http://www.busjournal.com/content/archives/sep99/editorial.html

Link still works

SBA treated employees poorly:

In August 19 1999 article
printed in the San Bernardino Press-Enterprise by
reporter Cassie McDuff, it was reported that just prior to
SBA declaring bankruptcy, the employees knew that the
company was struggling.

But just days before, the
230 employees found out that their health insurance
payments had not been paid to Blue Cross since May, even
though payroll deductions were still being
made.

On Friday August 6 1999, at the end of a workshift,
the employees were led outside before being told of
the layoffs. A scuffle broke out when management
refused to let them back into the building for personal
items like tools.

Staff felt betrayed because
they had trusted the President Bob Chickering, and
General Manager Bill Rhodes.

A production
supervisor said: "They were stringing everybody along."

-----------------------------
The full article can be viewed for a small fee
at:
http://www.inlandempireonline.com/library/index.html