Now a flying school in Arizona does American School of Aviation act

Hi Guys

Thank you for putting up your experience. I am of the opinion that most of the flying schools are scams and an awareness should be created among interested individuals. I am in a similar predicament as you guys. I joined a flying school in Arizona in June and had to withdraw from the school in November as the training was deficient. In spite of having a signed contract I haven’t received the balance back.i. e$23000 which I was to receive on 1 Jan 2009. The school I was training in ain’t bankrupt as yet.

However I am determined to get my deposit back. I would really appreciate if somebody could give me inputs as to how to go about it….

Cindy

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We may have made our mistakes along the way, but we are also humans with a limited capacity… and ASA was a business!

At least we do not deserve to be stoned all the way. Our main goal was the quality of training, we may have made our mistakes along the way, but we are also humans with a limited capacity… and ASA was a business, a successful business for 6 years in a row. but if the US and countries governments still can’t solve the fuel problems, why did people think we can? Consider this, Six months ago, we went to all the students saying you have to pay an additional $6,000 to $8,000 more for your training, what would have been the response? i personally went to UAE, China to get more profitable business so your families does not have to come up with the additional funds.

I am surprised, that Sasha Puri, Vikram Pawar, Suraj Chopra and Ameya Kameth did not mention to any one, that they paid their tuition in Gurgaon and that ASA in California never got a penny out of it?!! Specially that 3 of them already graduated, now was ASA out to Scam student? How about each one who paid the $2,000 deposit in Gurgaon? And the US never got a penny of it, but all of you got the credit on your account?

Now every one is going after the management, fine, put your self in Prince’s shoes and he admits he is an AW!!

On New Year’s Day, Juana opens up the school and is feeding the fish in the tank; guess what she found in there?
A: HUMAN POOP!!

On a weekend evening, a drunken student pulls the fire alarm (Accidently!!) who had to leave the house to baby sit the reset of the students?

Students playing cricket in the parking lot, using the school’s furniture as goals..
For God Sake, we had to teach students to take a shower before showing up for class!!

Add to that, dealing with the FAA, Mechanics, India, lawyers, accountants, airport management for every little thing that students do!!

Parents, how do I tell a father, that your son is drinking every night and I have an arrest warrant for him? How do I tell your parents, your son is not showing up for lessons because the schedule is too early?! How do we tell them, your son is too busy with the bank teller and does not have time to study?!! Etc…

Here is what happened,
April last year 2007, Gurgaon was shut down costing a lot of money
July, was the last KFA interview
November, KFA staff came to visit to expand the relationship, instead, students complained about the housing and God knows what else, so they did not give a damn and cancelled the tie up!!
Still in November, 17 Students panicked and left the school creating more negative publicity.

Here is a quick lesson in business, if your current customers are pushing your new customers away for whatever reason, you run out of money and eventually your business runs out!!

ASA lost the market in India, even though, over 200 students graduated form there, all of the sudden, every one forgot that fact!!
November, I go to UAE to get some business, I got one student
March I got to China to get some business, it takes time
April I go to Egypt to get some business, we got 3 .

All of that and the FAA is on our tail to shut us down, in 2007, we had 109 inspections, and my question to them, if we were so bad, why did not you shut us down?!! And if we were not so bad, why did you inspect us 109 times?
I still do not have an answer to that, the FAA alone, costed 20% of Prince’s work week just to entertain them!! Why is it, that none of the students asked them that question?

I am sorry the management had to be strict as we did not have time to baby sit adults who were suppose to be in the air lines in a matter of months, I hope your future captains will make sure to tuck you in your seat before you fly!! Our main goal was to make you a pilot because we truly believed that one day thought out your career, the only thing that will save your life is your training, and that was our priority number 1.

They took our airplanes, cars and our house is about to be taken, but no one can take this from us
Our safety record is 100%, 98% of our graduates are successfully employed and satisfied with the training.

Reny Kozman

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Scheduling a forthcoming DASA (Defunct ASA) check ride, and it’s not funny.

My conjecture from the sideline:

CFI – Certified Flight Instructor
DPE – Designated Pilot Examiner

- Plausible hone conversation between CFI and DPE -

CFI: Hi , Jim here… used to be at Castle ASA remember me?
Hey listen, I’ve got a student ready for a commercial check ride real soon.

DPE: Hi Jim, I’ve heard you guys were closed and Prince and Reny are in hot water…………..
so what about this check ride? Has he met all requirements and the paper work ready?

CFI: Yup. no problem there, he’s ready and I’ll have all paper work ready for you.
How about Saturday at Yandell Ranch OK?

DPE: Where?

CFI: you know the small private field about 7 miles west of town on 132…
we’ve got owner’s permission and everything.

DPE: why not at muni? Besides the runway is way too short over there and they even don’t have fuel.

CFI: we’ve been doing a lot of flying at private fields lately because feds and repo guys are snooping around for some reason, and we’d like to keep them off our tail, you know.

oh don’t worry about fuel, we call up Prince and Reny on cellphone and they deliver it right up,
normally they carry few 5 gallon cans in the car.

DPE: what? You guys been using auto gas? Do you have a STC for that?

CFI: Prince said we do, and I trust him.

DPE: Yah right!

CFI: Hey listen, Prince and Reny are just driving up, I’ve got to run, I’ll call you again later. Click….

DPE: Tche, tche! (shaking head)

Got the picture?

echo yankee, out!

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I have the news where these students are going to get their admissions for their check ride

Thanks Mr. Bjoy aden for providing the names, IT SEEMS THEY ARE TALENTED AND CLEVER ENOUGH TO PROVE THE FAA AND THE IMMIGRATION TO LOOK LIKE A FOOL.

Two of the names (KAUSHIK & SHIVANI) were a fish trapper for Prince and Renny, they earned a lot by catching innocent students from India and elsewhere and made false promises even when the school was in the brink of extinction, they even said the student’s it was a summer vacation and they would receive a new laptop from the school when it reopens, and the third name (DEEPAK MAHALA) is a great and renowned person in ASA, an alcoholic and a drugs addict who was and is a hired mercenary for Prince and Renny to threaten the students from time to time. A few number of such cases are also registered against him in the Merced county. And about JIM I have no clue why is he still ******** Prince and Renny’s ***, probably he wants some multi hours so he even wants to triple his multi hours on the Dutchees as he was turned down from Cal Air for not meeting his multi requirements for an multi instructor post. They know it very well that with the current status they can complete their requirements but cannot go on with a check ride, so the next thing they will do is to get an I-20 of a school, get new TSA’s and complete their check ride. And probably they will seek a school which is far away from here, may be Arizona, Texas or elsewhere so that their records cannot be traced.

I have full support for the students of ASA who have suffered such heavy losses, and I am getting other people to help them but my sincere request will also be that all the students and the people who are in support should stand up and stop these kind of mean minded people to get away easily, they dont have any sympathy towards the suffered students, they only know their business, they can dance on their own ones graves for getting their work done. As per my information I have the news where these students are going to get their admissions for their check ride, and I will work seriously to see that I can update the concerned school regarding the matter so that they can not escape.

anonymous commentator

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Secondcity has been barred by WordPress from appearing in search results for ‘American School of Aviation’

This is very unfortunate and we don’t have any idea, why they are doing it or how did it happenned? It can be a technical flaw but our other blog (Study Abroad Commission Junction) with the same tag (American School of Aviation) is featured on the search results.

One of our reader pointed out yesterday in one of his comments and than Echo Yankee also complained about the same thing. All the posts which were published on SecondCity were missing from wordpress result pages and few similar posts which were published by our another blog were showing up there. It is still not showing and our team is trying to get hold of great guys at WordPress but Its mid-night and we can’t do anything about it.

Probably you’ll not be able to search for news & updates related to the American School of Aviation in SecondCity WordPress Blog any more. There is no need to worry, just subscribe to the our feed here or bookmark our url http://2ndcity.wordpress.com.

Regards

Ashutosh, News Desk, SecondCity

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Open Letter to the FAA Flight Standard District Office, Fresno, CA

James Murray- Operations Supervisor
David Lehman – Airworthiness Supervisor

In Re: American School of Aviation

Dear Messrs Murray and Lehman:

In the FAA Aircraft Registry records, there appears to exist conflicting records that are likely to constitute a violation in compliance with the statutory requirement relating to civil aircraft registry in the US.

Synopsis:
American School of Aviation, Inc. is a California corporation with its president and other corporate officer(s) are not U.S. citizen.

Title 14 CFR Part 47 of the Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) governs the requirement related to the civil aircraft registration in the US

Part 47.3 stipulates Registration required.
Part 47.5 defines Applicants.
Part 47.7 defines U.S. citizens and resident aliens with respect to civil aircraft registration.
Part 47.9 defines “Corporations not U.S. citizen”.
Part 47.9 (f) stipulates thrice annual report requirement by the registrant to the FAA.

Analysis:
All ASA aircraft except one (30 before 8/04/08 down to 11 as of 8/14/2008 ) are currently registered under FAR Part 47.7 and issued aircraft registration certificate bearing “Corporation” instead of its true and factual status of its corporate entity as “Foreign Corporation”. In the FAA AC Form 8050-1 Aircraft Registration Application, there is a specific box to be checked off for Non-citizen Corporation and provided along with “Certification” section for the applicant’s certification for a non-citizen corporation. If these sections were properly completed in the ASA aircraft registration application, all of its registration then should have been issued under Part 47.9 with the respective registration certificate bearing ”Foreign corporation”

Conclusion:
If ASA has made erroneous entry in its aircraft registration application and submitted to the FAA Aircraft Registry knowingly or not knowingly and obtained its registration certificate, then the ASA aircraft are not registered under Part 47.9 and not in compliance with Part 47.9(f) requirement. This ipso facto invalidates all of its registrations under FAR 47.41(a) ( 8 ) (ii) and requires ASA to surrender all of its invalidated registration certificate immediately in accordance with FAR 47.43 (b).

One of the school owners had publicly stated their school received 109 surveillance visits from your office in 2007, yet why this blatant aircraft registration violation eluded the filed inspectors scrutiny is beyond me.

There exists an ample evidence based on flight activities taking place recently at Hayward, Modesto and elsewhere to indicate the school is still operating under the guise of new satellite base after its 141 school certification has been long presumed to be suspended if not revoked already.

In view of the matter affecting the welfare and interests of all those victimized students as well as that of local aviation community, it would be most appropriate that your office offers a public announcement in connection with the ASA matter as soon as aircraft registration investigation is completed.

All eyes are on your prudent and swift enforcement action.

Respectfully submitted.

Echo Yankee

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Its flying time as ususal for group of students hand picked by Prince & Reny

-My view from the sideline-

Most recent ASA flight activities appearing on the Flight Aware Tracking System

8/12/2008
Cessna 172/A N1482M
Dep. Hayward 20:51 PDT
Arr. Chico Unknown
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N1482M

Cessna 152/A N 757XY
Dep. Modesto 12:56 PDT
Arr. Redding Unknown
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N757XY

8/13/2008
BE76 Duchess N7774T
Dep. Hayward 18:11 PDT
Arr. Modesto 18:35 PDT
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N7774T

As suspected by one of the Ex-ASA students who posted earlier, all indications are now clearly pointing to the high probability that the remnants of ASA made up of few former ASA CFIs and a group of students hand picked by Prince and Reny have been flying out of Hayward and Modesto and elsewhere.

The two of the above aircraft (N757XY and N7774T) are among the 19 aircraft that changed hands recently.

Apparently sale/lease back or sale/payment by use type arrangement is allowing them to keep possession of some of the aircraft sold and continue to use them for those clandestine training flights.

echo yankee, over & out!

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Follow up: Open letter to SABA President Khurshid Khoja, Esquire

My view from the sideline:

Dear Mr. Khoja,

I am following up on my open letter of 7/30/2008 addressed to you subsequent to SABA’s announcement to come to aid for the ASA students stranded in Atwater upon its sudden closure in June 2008.

Have you received a reply since from the DA’s office in response to your earlier request then made?

So, what sort of progress has been made and continue to be made at SABA to help those former ASA students in distress?

Why no SABA initiative so far for assisting the victimized students to file an individual or consolidated crime report with the sheriff’s department, the first step necessary for a criminal prosecution from the victim’s end?

Do you really believe in your trained legal professional mind that the ASA students qualify for a “U” visa with an employment authorization that I believe you’re referring to in your earlier statement? If not, please explain.

What makes you believe the “U” visa relief will work in this situation despite seemingly clear cut eligibility requirement that precludes the former ASA students?

http://www.ilrc.org/resources/U%20Visa/Frequently%20Asked%20Questions.html

Above questions are not meant to be rhetorical and I truly believe the former ASA student’s interests along with that of public would be best served by the real answers provided in order to keep a false hope of any kind from emerging.

At the risk of giving an impression of being overly impatient, I adjure your thoughtful response in a timely fashion.

Respectfully submitted.

Echo Yankee
ATP/A&P

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Question to all former ASA students who were the victims of criminal fraud

My view from the sideline:

Question,
Has anyone ever filed a crime report so far against Prince and Reny for a criminal fraud and received a crime reference number (CRN ) assigned by the sheriff’s department?………………….didn’t think so.

Over 100 students were wronged, yet no victims officially exist as far as the sheriff’s department is concerned because no crime report was filed.

Ignorance and assumptions are all too often dangerous.

No wonder this isn’t getting any traction. Much to my surprise, there seems to be no crime report against Prince and Reny has ever been filed with Merced County Sheriff’s Department by any former ASA student. Only one filed so far appears to be the fuel supplier who was reported to be owed $56,000 unpaid fuel.

Now onto your case, no matter how bad you want the duo to be put behind bars, just hoping and thinking doesn’t make it so. This is probably what’s transpiring: No criminal report filed→no criminal victim→no criminal charge brought forward That pretty much explains it. You all need to do what it takes by methodically following the established judicial procedures step by step. Here is what you need to do:

1. Go to Merced County Sheriff’s Department and get a Criminal Report Form http://www.mercedsheriff.com/
(If they don’t have the forms available get an instruction on how to prepare or better yet get a sample copy)

2. Contact SABA and ask one of their lawyers to help preparing a crime report
3. When it’s ready, take it to the Sheriff’s Department and file it.
4. Get a crime reference number (CRN ) assigned to your case (this is used for follow up and status check)
5. Tell everyone to do the same, more the better to place the case in a higher priority.
6. Follow up on the status using your CRN
7. Report on this blog from time to time to keep everyone posted until the justice is done.

Echo Yankee, over & out!

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ASA could become the subject of a criminal probe led by FBI

ASA students celebrating Reny Kozman's b'day, a file photo.

American School of Aviation,  already besought with civil lawsuits, could become the subject of a criminal probe led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Merced County District Attorney Larry Morse II has asked the FBI to take a role into the investigation of the American School of Aviation. Morse said the district attorney’s office needs the FBI’s assistance in performing forensic accounting to discover if crimes were committed by Manpreet “Prince” Singh and his wife Reny Kozman, who co-owned the flight school along with partners in India.

“There are a variety of issues involving potential criminal fraud arising from the situation,” Morse wrote in the letter sent to the FBI.

As a matter of course, the FBI will not confirm if they are involved in a criminal investigation.

The students’ tuition fees were supposed to be kept in a trust account and charged as the students progressed through their flight training. A lawsuit filed by 52 of the students in July alleges that Singh directed the tuition directly into his own accounts. It accuses him of fraud, breach of contract and misrepresentation. Among the allegations made against the school and Singh is that they continued to recruit students despite knowing they could not provide the instruction as promised.

The students are seeking $2.2 million in refunds and punitive damages. The lawsuit was filed with the Merced County Superior Court, but the papers have not been served upon Singh because he hasn’t been located, according to attorney Palvir Shoker, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the students.

A second set of 10 students has filed a similar lawsuit and is seeking $200,000. The lawsuit was filed by attorney Jeffrey Poindexter and claims that the students were directed to a fake ASA Web site where they could ostensibly keep track of how their tuition funds were being deducted. The complaints states: “This accounting system was set up to deceive and mislead the students. As soon as the students would make a tuition payment of $40,000, the defendants would spend all of the money. This allegation is premised upon the fact that the defendants have conceded they owe the refunds, but claim they have no money to pay the refunds…

“By immediately spending the entirety of a student’s tuition, without providing the promised flight training and education, the defendants either purposefully, recklessly or negligently began operating as a sort of ponzi scheme. Each new student’s tuition would go to pay the costs and expense of earlier enrolled students.”

Reny Kozman has previously blamed the school’s financial hardships on partners based in India, who she says stole the school’s money in her email to SecondCity last month.

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