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Southwest Aviation fueling again at Las Cruces International Airport

It has already been more than a year since a medical flight crew was killed shortly after take off from the Las Cruces Airport. The family of the cancer patient killed in that crash is suing Elite Medical Transport out of El Paso, Southwest Aviation and Amigo Aviation in Las Cruces. The pilot, a nurse and a medic were also killed.

A report by federal investigators found the wrong fuel was poured into the plane’s fuel compartment. Beginning Tuesday, Southwest Aviation is once again fueling aircraft at Las Cruces International Airport.

Southwest Aviation says the employee who made the fatal mistake is still working with the company and has been retrained and re-certified. The owner, Hal Kading says a 10 month hiatus had nothing to do with last year’s crash.

“Just making sure everything is in compliance with the regulations,” Kading said.

Kading tells ABC-7 his company wasn’t fueling aircraft for 10 months because the city said how they were storing their tanks weren’t in compliance with state standards.

“You can’t believe the delays that didn’t amount to anything,” Kading said.

City spokesman Udell Vigil says any delays were due to making sure multiple operators at the airport were safe.Southwest Aviation had to receive a lease, then a permit for building a new storage unit for its tanks.

“We wanted to make sure that there was ample space for both of them to operate and once that we made that determination construction began it went relatively quickly,” Vigil said.

Kading says during those 10 months they were still in business, providing flight training and renting out hangers.Now that they’re back to fueling, they’ve since updated their training.

“Being out of the fueling for that long we wanted to be sure everybody was up to the latest standards,” Kading said.

Vigil says as long as Southwest Aviation is up to proper standards, they’re allowed to continue operating at the Las Cruces Airport

“The litigation Southwest Aviation is facing has nothing to do with their ability to operate at the airport. That’s a totally separate manner. We look at them as a tenant and just like any other tenant as long as they’re in compliance and they do everything and they’re within their legal requirements then they’re able to operate,” Vigil said.

Southwest Aviation wouldn’t comment on pending litigation.

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