Kemper Aviation owner defended safety of planes

Jeff Rozelle insisted his planes were safe until the day he died while flying one.
Last year, some flight instructors at Rozelle’s flight school, Kemper Aviation, grumbled that the airplanes reeked of gasoline or had sputtered or broken down in the past. Stoking anxiety, Kemper students crashed twice in the final six weeks of 2007, killing four people and seriously injuring a fifth.
Rozelle, 36, tried to project a sense of calm as a new year began.
In an interview two months ago with The Palm Beach Post, he said he didn’t blame his pilots for feeling uneasy. On Thursday morning, Rozelle, a husband and father of two small children, died along with two Florida Atlantic University students and an FAU researcher after a single-engine Cessna 172 that Rozelle was piloting crashed in western Martin County. School officials said Rozelle, a veteran pilot, was carrying the trio near Lake Okeechobee to survey migratory birds for a research project.
Jennifer Rozelle, who manages the flight school’s office during the day, described her husband as “a wonderful father and husband.”
Henri Massiera, a pilot who worked for Rozelle between November 2006 and June 2007, remembered him as even-tempered and soft-spoken. Rozelle’s students – he was chief flight instructor at his school – were shaken by news of his death.

“We have no idea what happened,” said one, standing outside the suburban Lake Worth apartment complex where Kemper’s students live.
Thursday’s wreck was the third fatal crash for the Lantana-based flight school since Oct. 27, and it brought the death toll in Kemper-related crashes to eight.
That’s the worst safety record of any flight school in Florida, according to data from the National Transportation Safety Board.
On Oct. 27, a Kemper plane flown by a veteran flight instructor and a trainee crashed into a golf course west of Boynton Beach. Both pilots – Anders Selberg, 46, and his student, Arjun Chhikara, 18 – were killed and a third student, Chandrashekhar Godghate, 39, was critically injured.
After his release from Delray Medical Center in January, Godghate sued Kemper Aviation, the school’s maintenance company and the company that leased the plane to the school, alleging negligence. A federal investigator who examined the wrecked Piper found an extra washer installed between the fuel filter bowl and its tightening screw, according to a preliminary report. He also noted that the Piper’s engine was set to draw from the right wing tank, which contained only about a half cup of fuel. He has yet to release a final report.
On Dec. 8, six weeks after Selberg and Chhikara died, Kemper student Cleon Alvares was killed along with another pilot, 56-year-old Harry Duckworth III, when Alvares’ Cessna collided with Duckworth’s Piper in a high-traffic training area over the Everglades west of Boca Raton.
That crash also remains under investigation.
After the crashes, a half dozen current and former instructors described Kemper Aviation as a hazardous place to work, citing concerns about how the school’s fleet was maintained.
Federal regulators cited Kemper Aviation for maintenance problems three times in the school’s 18-year history, records show. Most recently, Kemper was fined $1,000 for a maintenance problem detected in 2000.
In a statement released Thursday, FAA officials said the school, operated by Rozelle and Mohan’s company, Rohan Aviation Inc., still was under investigation.
The FAA relies on 182 general aviation inspectors to keep tabs on 66 flight schools statewide. The inspectors also renew pilot certificates, oversee air shows and investigate crashes, officials said. Two months before he was killed, Rozelle said his school’s planes were rigorously inspected by staff mechanics and held to the highest safety standards.
“I wouldn’t put these kids in the airplane every day if it wasn’t a safe school,” Rozelle said. “I take my son up and my family up at times, and I wouldn’t do it if I felt it was unsafe.
14/03/08 Michael LaForgia/Palm Beach Post, United States