Aviation News, Headlines & Alerts
 
Category: <span>Violations</span>

Warning: Trying to access array offset on value of type null in /home/airflight/www/www/wp-content/themes/fluida/includes/loop.php on line 270

Furious Air France Workers Attack Executives Over Job Cuts

Air FranceAbout 100 Air France employees stormed a management and union official meeting on October 5, after the airline announced plans to shed 2,900 jobs in the next 2 years.

The airline, which is struggling to compete with global rivals, announced job cuts after failing to convince its pilots to work longer hours on same salary.

The airline’s human resources manager Xavier Broseta and the head of long-haul flights Pierre Plissonnier had to flee from the angry workers, with their shirts torn off.

Seven people, including a security guard, were injured in the incident.

French President Francois Hollande said, “Social dialogue matters and when it’s interrupted by violence, and disputes take on an unacceptable form, it can have consequences for the image and attractiveness” of the country.”

A criminal investigation has been launched into the incident.

Intoxicated Driver Enters Phoenix Runway

What: unauthorized vehicle
Where: Phoenix Sky Harbor
When: Nov 16, 2012
Who: 2 aboard
Why: Reports say that Koko Nicole Anderson was intoxicated on drugs when the car she was driving barged through a partially closed gate and onto a runway while driving with her two month old child in the car. The gate was being tested when Anderson drove through it. She struck a portable toilet and kept driving until an officer rammed her car.

Anderson’s mother says the girl was not on drugs but suffering from bi-polar disorder.

The intoxicated driver with a history of mental illness was taken into custody, and booked into jail on aggravated DUI and criminal damage charges.

An expert determined that the intoxication was related to drugs instead of alcohol. In order to safeguard planes from being either accidentally or intentionally struck by misguided drivers, the airport is considering beefing up security with airport gates that include additional pop-up barriers.


Warning: Trying to access array offset on value of type null in /home/airflight/www/www/wp-content/themes/fluida/includes/loop.php on line 270

David Disiere Southlake Aviation Awarded $32-Million Damages in Congo Gold Smuggling Case

In a civil trial that sounded like a real life James Bond spy novel, a Dallas County Jury awarded Southlake Aviation, owned by Dallas business executive David Disiere, $32.4 million in damages against Houston based oil company, CAMAC International, its subsidiary CAMAC Aviation, and Mickey Lawal CAMAC’s Vice President of African Operations.
The case stemmed from a scheme in which CAMAC International and its officers used a Gulfstream V jet leased from David Disiere’s Southlake Aviation to try to spirit more than ten thousands pounds of gold bullion out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo with help from General Bosco Ntaganda, a notorious Congolese warlord.

Following the verdict, Southlake Aviation’s President, David Disiere praised the jury’s decision, “twelve citizens saw through a smoke-and- mirrors defense put on by the CAMAC’s attorneys and clearly found that CAMAC caused my company to loose a $43 million dollar aircraft in a greedy scheme that violated the U.S. Trading With The Enemy Act.”
The jury heard riveting testimony from a diamond trader involved in the scheme describing how CAMAC executives Kase Lawal, Mickey Lawal, and Kamoru Lawal arranged to exchange two-oversized suitcases stuffed with six-and-half million dollars in cash for ten boxes of gold delivered by General Bosco Ntaganda’s armed forces.

An investigation of the smuggling incident by the United Nations Security Council found that CAMAC and its three top executives, Kase Lawal, Mickey Lawal, and Kamoru Lawal were dealing with “individuals operating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and committing serious violations of international law involving the targeting of children or women in situations of armed conflict.”

Kase Lawal, Mickey Lawal, and Kamoru Lawal who are Nigerian American brothers invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination hundreds of times during their testimony in the case.

Houston energy executive, Kase Lawal the former CEO of CAMAC International and the current CEO of the publically traded CAMAC Energy Inc. was appointed to a White House Trade Advisory position by President Obama and serves on the boards of the Houston Port and Airport Authorities.

David Disiere, the Dallas business executive and owner of Southlake Aviation, told the jury how he was shocked to get a call in the dead of night informing him that his company’s 43-million dollar Gulfstream V jet aircraft loaded with ten boxes of gold had been confiscated in Goma by authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on February 5, 2011. The jury’s verdict also included compensation of more than 535-thousand dollars for repairing damage done the to the aircraft’s interior passenger compartment during the loading of the gold.

Because Southlake Aviation’s aircraft was confiscated in the Congo, VFS Financing a subsidiary of General Electric, automatically placed Southlake Aviation’s loan to purchase the Gulfstream V in default, accelerated the entire balance, and repossessed the aircraft.

Testimony in the case and the investigation by the United Nations also indicated that former Houston Rocket’s basketball star Dikembe Mutombo acted as an intermediary in the gold smuggling scheme.

Testimony in the case showed that David Disiere had never met the Lawal brothers. Disiere testified that CAMAC had signed a three-year lease for Southlake’s Gulfstream V jet and claiming it would use the jet was to travel between its Houston headquarters and oil operations in Nigeria.

The jury agreed with David Disiere’s testimony that CAMAC and its officers violated the terms of the aircraft’s lease by using it in an outlaw region of Africa.


Warning: Trying to access array offset on value of type null in /home/airflight/www/www/wp-content/themes/fluida/includes/loop.php on line 270

DOT Press Release: Travel Agency Fined

Office of Public Affairs

DOT 178-09
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Contact: Bill Mosley
Tel.: (202) 366-4570

DOT Administrative Law Judge Approves Ultimate Fares Settlement

The internet travel agency Ultimate Fares has been fined $600,000 and its owner $30,000 for violations of advertising regulations under a settlement approved by a U.S. Department of Transportation Administrative Law Judge (ALJ).

The fine, which would be the largest ever assessed for advertising violations, will become final in 30 days unless the Department decides to review the action or a petition for review is filed.

An investigation by the Department’s Aviation Enforcement Office found that Ultimate Fares failed to include the federal excise tax and the service fee it charged to consumers in fares published on its website between March 2008 and September 2009. This violated the Department’s requirement that published airfares must state the full price to be paid including service fees and any ad valorem tax, such as the Federal excise tax, which is assessed as a percentage of the fare. Ultimate Fares continued to omit the tax from its stated fares even after the Enforcement Office began its investigation, according to the consent order issued by ALJ Richard C. Goodwin. Ultimate Fares also failed to disclose which flights were being operated on a code-share basis as required by the Department’s rules.

In addition to the $30,000 penalty assessed against Ultimate Fares’ owner Roni Herskovitz, he also will be barred from any involvement in the online air travel agency business for 12 months.

The consent order and other documents in the case are available on the Internet at www.regulations.gov, docket DOT-OST-2009-0002.

Content not attributed to or linked to original, is the property of AirFlightDisaster.com; all rights reserved.

Site Credits