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This whole issue of American School of Aviation has become such an important issue for all of us in travel industry that we cannot just let it go. I was most concerned by the reports being published in American media which are very disturbing. According to some dropouts and current students of ASA which are right now hanging out in USA, this whole school is turning out to be one of the biggest scam in aviation history of USA and one of the biggest damage ever done to the Indian students by their own countrymen Manpreet ‘Prince’ Singh. With all due respect to all of you guys and gals who successfully completed your training from Amercan School of Aviation, I’m not sure whether you’ll be allow to fly in coming days as there are complaints which are suggesting that pilots were not given anough time in air.
Amarnadh Kachepalli, a 26-year-old student from Andhra Pradesh, a state in India, left the school in March after three months because he only spent one hour in the sky training.
“There’s no education at all,” he said. “There’s no flying.”
Kachepalli said he believes he should have recorded about 80 hours in that time. School officials assured him that he could earn his pilot’s license in six to eight months, he said.
Each student needs to spend about 200 hours in the sky and the same amount on the ground to qualify for license, Kachepalli said. Most of the early coursework is done in the classroom.
A commercial license typically requires a year’s worth of training, he said.
Kachepalli has been contacting various local, state and federal agencies as well as the Indian Consulate to see if they can force the school to return about $52,000, which includes his tuition, living expenses and the cost to transfer to a different school.
He holds a master’s in business administration and said he left his job working for a hospital to come to America for a year.
ASA is also being sued for $56,000 in unpaid fuel bills.
Gemini Flight Support, which sells gasoline at the former Air Force base, filed a complaint Thursday in Merced County Superior Court against American School of Aviation.
It alleges that a $24,400 check from the school bounced May 19 due to insufficient funds. ASA also has about $32,000 in outstanding invoices, according to the complaint.
“A check of this size being returned is more than what we can bear,” Gemini Flight Support vice president Jim Price said. “Given the price of fuel, we just absolutely can’t afford to carry that kind of a debt load.”
The flight school will also be investigated to see whether it was an accounting error or if the company knew the check would bounce, said Tom MacKenzie, spokesman for the Merced County Sheriff’s Department.
The court case is among the recent issues with the flight school, which primarily trains foreign students, often from India, to become commercial pilots. It’s been at Castle Commerce Center since 2005.
County officials grounded its flights earlier this month because the school no longer had a valid insurance policy, and Merced city leaders found that ASA was using its airport as makeshift training ground without a necessary business license.
Also, a few students have been demanding that their tuition be returned because they’re unsatisfied with the amount of time they spent in the sky. A couple of others have won small claims against the school.
Last month, a judge awarded student Shailendra Kapoor $7,500 for breach of contract and emotional stress, according to Merced court records. Tuition for a pilot’s license can run about $40,000.
ASA president Manpreet Singh, who typically goes by Prince Singh, only responded by e-mail. He was served with a copy of the lawsuit late in the day and didn’t respond for comment about the civil case.
Earlier in the day, he wrote that about 5 percent of the students are unhappy or drop out because their learning style doesn’t match up with the American School of Aviation’s standards.
“And this is quite normal and expected,” he wrote.
The business is in the middle of a restructuring so it can train more students. It’s preparing to move to a larger building at the former U.S. Air Force base. By August, Singh hopes to train about 300 students at a time.
County spokesman Mark Hendrickson said Castle managers grounded the school’s flights May 15 when they learned the business’ insurance policy had lapsed.
The county could have been held liable had any of the flights crashed. The ban was lifted Thursday when the school showed Castle officials that it had a new insurance policy, Hendrickson said.
Prince Singh denied that the county ever grounded the school’s flights. The school’s planes were spotted at Merced Municipal Airport last week in the midst of the county’s flying ban. The city airfield was being used as a makeshift school until Thursday, city spokesman Mike Conway said. Airport officials were unsuccessful in contacting the school’s managers.
ASA was operating without a business license, Conway said, which amounts to a misdemeanor. The city’s evaluating whether to call for an investigation. Stan Thurston, Gemini’s president, said he heard from a school manager that it was going to suspend its operation until next week. He won’t be selling the school any gasoline until the court case ends, either by a judge’s decision or when the school pays its outstanding bills.
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hi every one this is pratap chaudhary , My young brother Shamsher singh hooda was a part of ASA and he has also completed his Private License, but with the shutdown of the school ours $27000 has been taken by the school and are not refunded, this amount was taken on loan by a bank and thus created a very serious problem to us , bank is also not gonna make any closing of that amount without taking it back ? this issue if any one have ,hw to make any step that can just bring back the refund may plz contact me. we are also trying our best to take every necessary step to get our money back ,,
Pratap Chaudhary
ph-09899721003
09837306196
Gautam Mahajan **##** Reny's left *****
stop ****** on Manpreet Singh's little *****##
people like you deserve to get ****$#$# by PRINCE and KOZMAN
@Anju
Who are you and what do you know about students here?
Not to mention Cal Airways has been approved by the TSA…:)
California Airways has no issues at all training foreign students with the FAA or DHS. I think an issue like that would have been found if it existed last time the FAA audited our school for 141 compliance.
Please stay away from crooks like Manpreet Singh and Please stay away from students in ASA. Since they are on street now they want to say good to Singh and they hope that if Singh reads in newspaper about his students telling good to media then Singh will become Happy and start a New School for these students.
So just keep away from such crooks. Think before helping them.
I will not comment anything about the training in ASA but instead why not ask Japji Kaur who left ASA in 2 months because she was not getting proper training and then later completed her training in just 5 months and 10 days. Everybody is unique and everybody has their own way to study and finish the training in their own time. But anyway , no one wants to spend 1 year or take forever in a training which is estimated to be completed in 7 -8 months period. Yes , I agree that there are some good students and bad students , some are very fast in studies and some are very very slow, but when people like Japji leave the school and completes her training in just 5 months then what do you think ? If the training in ASA was very Strict and Good enough then why did she headed over in some other school , why was she disappointed by ASA.
Though we didn't start our training but without undergoing training with Mr.Singh, we came to know about his crookery in just 2 meetings but we feel pitty for the students who are still not aware of what Singh was doing in the name of Pilot Training School and plus they are still ,. till date supporting Singh and singing his praises.
I cannot comment on the business practices of the school but being a student there for one year I can't accept media persons questioning the quality of training we underwent there. The school has been really strict with the training, stage checks and check-rides. Many of us failed check-rides and stage checks and ended up flying more than double the time required to complete a particular course (like Private, Instrument) in order to gain required proficiency. There has been no case of any pilot over-logging the flight time. Don't you think if that was the case we all could have finished the training in 10months? In your effort to bring down the management you people are making it worse for innocent students who trained there. Even I have lost a lot of money and appreciate the help we are getting from all sources but please do not make any ugly assumptions regarding our training.
I have a sincere request to Naik sisters, I understand whatever you went through is bad enough (and we all are also going through that right now). But please do not tell lies to the media regarding the training. You two never trained here. And those among the media who are doubtful about the training practices are welcome to talk to any of the students (even the dissatisfied students who left the training midway to join other schools will agree with me). I am more than eager to prove my ability as a pilot to any qualified examiner anywhere, anytime but I will not tolerate these wrong allegations against my flying experience. If any of the former ASA students is reading this I will appreciate your support in this matter.
I expect the editor of above article to correct the contents of the first paragraph and apologize to the students.
Are you Sure Flying Vikings is not authorized by FAA.Where do I get the information about that.Please send me the link to support what you are telling.
The students need to be aware that California Airways and Flying Vikings are not authorized by FAA and department of Homeland Security to train foreign students. They might land themselves in bigger troubles unless thye follow regulations.
I am Bhavana Naik. On 26th June, 08 there was an open meeting at the Barracks of American school of aviation , and so me and my sister who had paid $17,000/- to ASA had gone to attained the meeting. Singh was talking to the students that FAA had called him and asking him "sir when and where are you opening your next school,so that we can issue the license"…..this is all fake. He is trying to fool the students. Because FAA does not talk to anyone on phone and they don't keep calling anyone. Later he said to the students that "who told you that my planes are grounded,stop spreading out rumors."………what does this Singh think that whatever the media says is all fake and if the planes are not grounded then why is school closed?……I asked Singh. "where is my $17,000/-, give me the accounts"?. on this he said "Fuck You"…….and later he asked his stooges (students) to push us and assault us and throw us out of the meeting. the students pushed us physically and used bad language with us. Later we called the Sherriff and lodged a complaint against Singh, his wife Reny and the students who assaulted us physically.
I just want the world to know that how this Singh is and plus about the students ,because the world feels sad for the students but yet there are some idiots who don't deserve a pity but they deserve a good punishment for being the stooges of Mr.Singh.
I need help whether how can we FIX , Mr.Singh. He is now trying to open another school in Sacramento, we are trying our level best to stop that. Please suggest me as how can he go behind bars. If anyone knows more about him please come forward so that we can save the world from such CROOKS.
Thankyou.
Bhavana!