I am personally saddened, as a former airplane broker of turboprop regional aircraft I was involved in this airplane being placed into service at Winward Island Airways, St. Maarten many years ago. When it first arrived, it had just had a fresh heavy overhaul and was newly painted in white overall with blue belly and red cheat lines and the interior had been refurbished. At the time, Winair was involved with a competition with Air Guadaloupe for traffic between the Dutch and French Island and the acquisition of this airplane was intended to help Winair grow into a real Eastern Caribbean powerhouse. Unfortunately a number of technical problems with the engines developed, and the airline never managed to operated it profitably. I like to remember this airplane the day it was first flown to St. Maartin fresh from the paint shop and interior refurbishment. I flew in the airplane with airline officials and a number of crew that had traveled to Indiana for training in the aircraft. We had heard there were a number of people waiting to see the new airplane, and the Captain elected to execute a missed approach so we could perform a legal low level flyby. There must have been 2,000 people waiting and watching, and when we finally landed it was quite a party with airline staff and many onlookers wanting to inspect the aircraft. Unfortunately the airplane was tied up in legal problems for a long time...over five years. The YF-11 maintenance program that the airplane was being operated under required a hard time 5 year heavy check, and when the then current check finally expired I suppose that there was really no choice about conducing another service on the aircraft -- it was unprofitable and was either going to be scrapped, used as an artifical reef or...converted into a tacky looking bar. James Harper former Aircraft Broker "Aeroconsult Inc. d/b/a email: [email protected] October 15, 2006