More SBA History - Part 1
rplenert
2/19/00 3:21 am
SBA had their
headquarters based in 4 hangars at Santa Barbara Airport, in
Goleta California, and they employed about 400 people.

On April 1 1997 SBA also opened a satellite facility
at San Bernardino Airport (formerly known as Norton
Air Force Base). 200 people were employed there,
making a total of 600 employees. Almost as soon as the
satellite facilities opened, they announced plans in May
1997 to expand it from the existing 2 hangars, to 4
hangars.

Things were looking good for the company, and they were
growing. This caught the interest of both airports where
SBA was based, and I think they ended up vying for
SBA's business, hoping to kick-start their own local
economies. Actually, it became a three-way tug of war
including Santa Maria Airport. Perhaps some concessions
offered, I don't know. But SBA was certainly benefitting
from it. They were already getting a rent reduction in
Santa Barbara. And on November 24 1997 SBA received a
$1M grant from 'The Employment Training Panel' - a
California State agency - towards training programs for
their employees.

The first sign of trouble for
SBA occurred in June 1998, when the FAA proposed a
$300,000 Hazmat fine on them for illegally shipping oxygen
generators on a Continental Airlines passenger flight a year
earlier. Worse, it happened after the highly publicized
ValueJet accident.

Things also seem to have gone
financially sour for SBA in September 1998 when they lost a
$3M maintenance contract with Minneapolis based Sun
Country Airlines, forcing them to lay off 130 of their
employees. One media report says that they lost the Sun
Country deal on Sept 2 1998 (ironically, the day of the
SR111 crash), however, SBA claims that employees were
told of the pending layoffs a week earlier - in late
August. (It would be nice to find out about that for
sure.)

Less than two months after the crash, the
FAA had already done an 'internal review' of the
events surrounding the IFEN certification, SBA, and the
FAA's own oversight of its Designated Alteration
Stations, like SBA. Obviously they didn't like what they
saw, because on November 15 1998, the FAA forced Santa
Barbara Aerospace to surrender their DAS
Certificate.

This was really damaging to SBA, I'm sure. They had
lost the important status of being only one of
thirty-one DAS's in the country.

(Continued...)

More SBA History - Part 2
rplenert
2/19/00 3:24 am
On December 15 1998, SBA
relocated their headquarters at Santa Barbara Airport, into
the facilities occupied by their satellite office in
San Bernardino. An article I found said that they
were being evicted from their Santa Barbara hangars by
their landlord, Lucas Aviation. But that could simply
mean lease expiry. Nevertheless, roughly 200 employees
at their headquarters agreed to relocate to the San
Bernardino Airport.

In March 1999, WestJet Airlines
based in Calgary Alberta filed a $10M lawsuit against
Santa Barbara Aerospace for poor work. SBA counter
sued, claiming that WestJet highjacked the plane and
kidnapped SBA's staff who were on board believing that it
was a flight test. WestJet dropped off the employees
and flew the aircraft back to Calgary. SBA says it
was done to avoid paying the $500,000 repair
bill.

In April 1999, presumably to help them out, a sister
company of SBA called Transpacific Leasing, referred $18M
in business to them. The deal was for SBA to upgrade
two Boeing 727 cargo freighters, with an option to do
two more. (One news article said that SBA and
Transpacific are both subsidiaries of a company called Santa
Barbara Holdings. This is confusing, because SBA's own
website, which is now a dead link, claimed that its parent
company was called Quaker Holdings.)

In May 1999,
SBA started to secretly divert payroll deductions
intended for Blue Cross medical insurance, in order to pay
other employees.

Then on Friday August 6 1999,
SBA waited until the end of a work shift, and rounded
the employees outside to announce that they were out
of business. A scuffle broke out with management
when employees were refused entry back into the
building to collect their personal belongings, such as
tools. SBA had also violated a Federal law that requires
them to give their employees 60 days notice prior to
closing.

When SBA filed for Chapter 11 Bancruptcy,
they faced debts of over $16M. In early February 2000,
SBA was ready to be sold to South Carolina-based
American Aircarriers Support Inc. for $2.3M. But the sale
was interrupted by the appearance of Boeing
representatives, who requested and were granted a one week delay,
so they could search through SBA's business records.
SBA was then sold under the condition of a court
order that prevents them from destroying any records,
particularly ones associated with the Swissair crash.

BOEING LOOKS FOR A SMOKING GUN AT SBA!
rplenert
2/2/00 9:31 pm
It's been reported that
over the last few days, Boeing has been busy pouring
over business records at the offices of Santa Barbara
Aerospace, looking for a 'smoking gun'.

It started
last Friday, in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Riverside
California. Presumably Boeings' lawyers interrupted the
completion of sale of Santa Barbara Aerospace for $2.3M, to
a South Carolina company called American
Aircarriers Support Inc.

Boeing successfully made a
case to Judge Meredith Jury to extend the deal's
closing at least until tomorrow - February 3rd, 2000, to
allow them time to review SBA's records.

If
they can come up with compelling evidence, Boeing will
seek a cancellation of the sale. Otherwise, the sale
would separate now-bankrupt SBA from it's parent
company, Quaker Holdings Inc., into separate
entities.

Lawyers representing the buying and selling parties
objected to Boeing's 11th hour attempt at blocking the
sale, arguing that Boeing had plenty of time
beforehand, to do any
investigating.

----------------
The report was filed by Michael Utley of The
Press-Enterprise, in San Bernardino California, on Jan 29, 2000.

The article requires a small fee to be
viewed.
http://www.inlandempireonline.com/library/index.html

I found this article online at Sbcsun.com written
by Dan Evans. Here is a small excerpt;

In
bankruptcy court on Friday, American Aircarriers Support and
Santa Barbara Aerospace agreed not to destroy any
documents having to do with the September 1998 crash of
Swiss Air Flight 111 unless Boeing and the committee
representing unsecured creditors in the bankruptcy are given
30 days notice.

In return, Boeing and the
committee won't attempt to stop the sale of Santa Barbara
Aerospace's assets to American Aircarriers
Support.

"This is a reasonable resolution and not a great burden
to any of the parties involved," said bankruptcy
Judge Meredith Jury.

Friday's hearing should put
to an end the saga of Santa Barbara Aerospace, which
filed for bankruptcy in August.

The link to the below article can be found at
http://www.sbcsun.com/news/09161999/index.html

You will need to go through their archives to find
the article. The part that I posted was the
information most relevant to our discussions.

Another article pertaining to bankruptcy of SBA:

Michael Utley, of the Press-Enterprise also wrote
about this bankruptcy 'situation' and the deal Boeing
has made with SBA.

He also states that as a
condition of the deal, SBA 'was ordered to preserve all of
its business records, especially documents pertaining
to work performed on a SwissAir passenger jet that
crashed off the coast of Nova Scotia in September 1998.'
He goes on to say that Boeing requested this court
order because SBA may have some liability in this
disaster. Boeing spent most of last week going over SBA's
records and spent time questioning the president of the
firm, Robert Chickering about his business with
swissair. The hearing was also attended on Friday by
Benjamin Fox, an attorney for swissair."SwissAir has an
interest equal to Boeing in the preservation of
those
records," Fox said.

The entire article can be found
in the archives at the following url, and can be
retrieved for a small fee.
http://www.inlandempireonline.com/library/

See the below for an analysis of the bankruptcy hearings:
http://www.digistar.cl/SR111/courtxt2.html