An Atlanta charter operator should pay $5.89 million in civil penalties for conducting hundreds of illegal charter flights from 2017 through 2019, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says.
The FAA said Wednesday that Humes McCoy Aviation operated three airplanes ─ a Cessna Caravan, Beechcraft Super King Air and CASA 212-200 ─ on a total of 270 illegal cargo flights.
“The flights were illegal because the company did not have a commercial operating certificate, advertised and offered to perform operations that required such a certificate, received compensation for the flights and used pilots who had not passed required tests and flight competency checks,” the FAA said.
The FAA also alleged that Humes McCoy lacked an approved pilot training program and a hazardous materials training program and that it had not provided the required initial and recurrent hazardous materials training for all crewmembers.
The agency said that the 270 flights were “careless or reckless so as to endanger lives or property.” The flights involved operations to or from Raleigh-Durham Airport, Albert J. Ellis Airport, Coastal Carolina Regional Airport and Dare County Regional Airport, all in North Carolina; Columbia Metropolitan Airport and Beaufort County Airport in South Carolina; and Eastern Iowa Airport and Spencer Municipal Airport in Iowa.
Humes McCoy has 30 days to respond to the FAA after receiving the agency’s enforcement.