April 26, 2009 — No one was injured Sunday when a fire in the cockpit of a Four Star Air Cargo DC-3 plane in San Juan totally destroyed about a quarter of the mail bound for St. Thomas, U.S. Postal Service spokesman Monica Hand said.
Details about the incident are sketchy, but Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Arlene Salac said the plane was evacuated and no injuries occurred.
"And the plane was destroyed," she said.
She did not know many people were on board, or have any other information.
The Aviation Safety Network website reported that five people were on board, and that while the plane was headed down the runway, an uncontrollable fire occurred. The website indicated the plane was "written off," meaning it was damaged beyond repair.
The salvageable mail suffered smoke or water damage, Hand said.
"But about a quarter of it was damaged but can be saved and rewrapped," she said.
Half the mail survived the fire, Hand said. The plane was carrying 6,000 pounds of Priority, Express and First Class mail, but most of the mail was Priority.
The undamaged mail and the mail that can be salvaged should leave San Juan Monday on another carrier, Hand said.
"We always have a contingency plan," she said.
A postal employee in the Virgin Islands who did not want to be named said that unless the mailer paid extra for services like insurance, return receipt and tracking number, or there was some other way to make sure it was mailed, the recipient will be out of luck when it comes to collecting the value of whatever was in the package or envelope.
"There's no proof it was mailed," the Postal Service employee said.
He pointed out that a customer's mail might be lost or delayed somewhere else in the Postal Service system and not on board the Four Star plane that caught fire.
The NTSB will have an investigator on the scene Monday, said National Transportation Safety Board spokeswoman Bridget Serchak.
"The plane was getting ready to take off," Serchak said.
It will take nine months to a year for the NTSB to determine the cause, she said.
No one returned several calls to Four Star in San Juan, to its Philadelphia headquarters and to the weekend number listed on Four Star's website.
The FAA website indicates the plane was built in 1942.
The Four Star websitenotes the company has been in business since 1982, but co-owner and Chief Executive Officer Stuart Diamond bought the company only a few years ago, according to an aviation industry source.
Four Star made the news April 17 when the FAA refused to let the plane fly the mail to St. Thomas because it did not have an FAA-approved cargo-restraint system in place. (See "FAA Stops Four Star From Flying Mail To V.I.")
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