Students hold on to hope of refunds from defunct flight school

Little has been resolved a year after American School of Aviation hastily closed amid a growing stack of unpaid bills, leaving about 100 aspiring pilots without their wings.Gemini Flight Service, which sold the flight school gasoline, still hasn’t received the $56,000 it’s owed.
Merced County may go to trial this year to collect $700,000 in past and future rent due under the five-year lease it had with ASA.
Students, mostly from India, were left without training and their tuition money when American School of Aviation closed a year ago at Castle.
And dozens of students, who filed suit because they were left without flying certificates or tuition refunds, are still seeking closure.
“I’m still frustrated,” former ASA student Nigel Dsouza said Wednesday. “I hope we get some money.”
Dsouza, 19, had been at the school for three months before it folded in June 2008. He went back to India for a month, returning to San Jose to complete his training. He’s 15 days shy of his commercial license.
American School of Aviation opened at Castle Commerce Center in 2005, using the former Air Force base’s barracks as dorms.
The students accuse ASA’s owner Manpreet “Prince” Singh of using tuition from new students to pay past bills to keep the business solvent, according to court filings.
Collectively, the 100 students, mainly Indians studying in the United States on visas, lost about $4 million. Despite the allegations of misconduct, FBI spokesman Steven Dupre said last week that the bureau has declined to open an investigation for a variety of reasons, though he declined to elaborate. Merced County District Attorney Larry Morse II had asked the FBI to consider a probe because his office couldn’t handle the forensic accounting needed to build a case.
Singh has maintained that ASA employees in India made off with some of the business’ cash and that rising fuel prices further burdened the school to the point where it had to close.
He declined to comment in an e-mail.
After ASA shut down, students filed a lawsuit in an effort to recoup the $40,000 they each paid in tuition. The one case was stalled, court records show, because the students have been unable to serve Singh with the civil complaint. A deputy and a private service company have been unable to find him.
At a hearing last week in Merced County Superior Court, the attorneys were granted permission to notice the case in a legal journal so it could proceed.
02/07/09 Scott Jason/Merced Sun-Star, USA