Raytheon Aircraft Co. is scrapping and incinerating all of its Beechcraft Starship I business aircraft, and plans to complete the destruction process by the end of this year. "The business decision has been made to cease support of the Starship and take those aircraft under our control out of commission, salvage all usable parts and terminate the program," a company representative said. As of late last week, six Starships already had been stripped of avionics, engines, propellers and landing gear, cut up and incinerated. Evergreen Air Center's heavy maintenance facility in Marana, Ariz., is responsible for the salvage procedure. Evergreen has an EPA-approved incinerator capable of producing the intense heat required to thoroughly burn carbon fiber composites. Three pre-production airplanes, which were not certified by Raytheon Aircraft Co. (RAC), were the first to be destroyed, followed recently by three other airframes.
展开▼
