New York, NY–Newark federal judge hears guilty plea from the cofounder of Platinum Jet Management, a now defunct, high-end charter jet company which was based in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. As reported by nj.com, the former company leader, 43 year-old, Andre Budhan pled guilty in connection with the Bombardier Challenger CL-600 charter jet crash. The private plane crashed at New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport in Bergen County on February 2, 2005. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) http://faa.gov officials found the jet was overloaded with fuel when it crashed through a fence, slid across Route 46, into a clothing warehouse and caused injury to 11 people.
Budhan informed U.S. District Judge, Joseph A. Greenway, he violated federal flight and safety regulations and flew close to 100 unlicensed flights when he pled guilty to the U.S. prosecuting attorney’s charges. According to federal court documents, in Newark, Platinum Jet Management failed to obtain proper FAA licensing and violated numerous other laws and regulations. The February 2009 indictment charged Budhan, and five other officials with the former Ft. Lauderdale based charter jet company, with falsifying flight logs, overloading planes with fuel to cut costs, and several other counts. Platinum was not licensed to carry commercial passengers and typically sold chartered flights billing itself as a high-end jet service. The private airplane company charged up to $90,000 per charter. Federal attorneys assert Budhan’s sentencing hearing was set for October 2009 and five codefendants will stand trial in January 2010.
News Contact: New York personal injury attorney Jonathan C. Reiter an aviation accident lawyer. Empire State Building, 350 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2811, New York, NY 10118. Telephone (212) 736-0979. www.jcreiterlaw.com
