From an engine fire while traversing South American mountains to missed purchase deadlines and buying two aircraft to ensure getting one, read about Dr. Mario Pereira’s path to owning a King Air C90A.
The story of Dr. Mario Pereira locating and ultimately buying a 1990 Beechcraft King Air C90A (LJ-1251) is not a short one. But it is an interesting tale that involves an engine fire and emergency landing at a high-elevation airport in South America, non-refundable deposits put toward multiple King Airs and missed year-end aircraft purchase deadlines.
This story begins like so many others, with a young boy enthralled by flight. Since learning to fly after becoming a physician and immigrating to the United States from El Salvador, Pereira has owned and operated three aircraft. He transitioned from a single-engine Cirrus SR22T to a twin-engine Diamond DA-62 in July 2020.
“First of all, I embrace change. I think that changing, upgrading and seeking higher levels of training to move to more capable platforms is part of the passion for aviation,” Pereira said. “And when the situation is lined up with a business necessity, then that’s the perfect scenario. When you sit down and start looking at numbers, you see that it may be time to upgrade to something bigger, faster and more capable.”
A clear case for a business aircraft
As an internal medicine specialist, Pereira uses an airplane to visit hospitals across Florida from his base at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (KFXE). He also uses it to support his family’s customs brokerage, freight forwarding and logistics company that’s been operating since 1963, Agencia Padilla Tablas SA de CV.
About five years ago, his workload as an internist increased, leading him to spend up to 10 days a month away from home.
“I may have to be in Fort Lauderdale until 6 p.m. [working] on Friday before going to dinner with my family and then need to be in Orlando or Panama City the next morning,” he explained. “So, you need a dependable airplane that’s going to be ready and that’s going to get you there quicker. We started flying a lot more often and were pushing 400 hours a year on the DA-62 and began running into a lot of unscheduled maintenance. I felt like the plane wasn’t made for that kind of abuse.”
Several unplanned downtime events caused him to begin considering upgrading to another aircraft. Multiple engine control unit failures, which resulted in a reduction to 65% power during initial climb, were particularly concerning and led Pereira to consider other options.
“The last nail in the coffin wasn’t a design problem but more of a maintenance-induced failure,” he said. “Forty-five minutes from El Salvador, we had an engine fire while going over the mountains. We were in IFR conditions when we lost power in the left engine. Black smoke started coming out of the cowling and we had to land down to minimums on one engine. That was quite an experience.”
The mechanics were as puzzled by the retrofitted automotive engines as they would have been by an alien spacecraft’s propulsion system, Pereira recalled. Even with their decades of expertise with multiple airframes, they had to call in factory support to even begin diagnosing the issue. That’s when he decided that a key feature of his next aircraft would be system familiarity.
“Let’s get a robust, industrial beast that can take the beating, where we can find parts everywhere and if you take it to a mechanic in Latin America they won’t be surprised,” he recalled thinking.
Three Pratt-powered options were on the table: Pilatus PC-12s, TBMs and King Airs. At that point, Pereira had already logged several hundred hours from the right seat of King Airs and PC-12s.
“We almost pulled the trigger on a TBM 850, but just the feeling of having one engine and flying three hours over vast amounts of water when flying to El Salvador made me and my wife a little nervous,” he said. “Two engines made the whole family feel a lot more comfortable.”
He narrowed in on the King Air and considered the F90 and C90.
“We shied away from the F90, though, because of the landing gear and the electrical system, which is not quite as good as the C90’s [the triple-fed version that is also on the 350]. We decided to go with simple, convenient and dependable technology,” he said.
Jockeying for a C90 to purchase
Once the decision was made, the race was on to find an airworthy C90 to close on before the end of the year. Well, Pereira wished for one and wound up with two aircraft, although not in his ideal time frame.
“We first went into contract for LJ-1251 in September and put a nice chunk of cash down,” he explained. “Inspections went perfectly, except the [magnesium] ailerons needed to be replaced, as they were corroded. At the time, there was a 24-month waiting period from the factory. We ordered the STC replacement option made of aluminum, which was set to arrive in a shorter time frame.”
He got nervous with December approaching and began considering other options he’d been casually studying.
frequent multi-hour trips over water to El Salvador.
“There was a Venezuelan-registered aircraft that was that was in pristine condition, with 400 hours on the engines. It was perfect and we were told it was deregistered and just waiting on an N number. It turns out the paperwork wasn’t filed correctly and what should have taken a week took much longer, and I started panicking again,” he said, recalling that this led him to make a Dec. 30 Hail Mary attempt. “We found another that was ready to go and made an offer, put money down and somebody else won the bid. I was so upset.”
Transitioning to the King Air C90A
Pereira closed on LJ-1251 in January 2023 and walked away from the former Venezuelan aircraft once the registration was completed in June. You can learn a lot about an aircraft before purchasing one, he advised, but the real uncovering happens after you take possession of the airplane.
“The jump from the DA-62 to this King Air has been quite an eye-opener in many ways,” he said. “Owning and operating a King Air is much more complex than just being a weekend flyer, taking a Cirrus or a DA-62 for a $100 burger trip. You have to eat, breathe and sleep King Air 24/7. It should not be considered a demanding endeavor, but rather a necessary and enjoyable experience. The moment it becomes a chore, that’s when you start cutting corners and mistakes happen.”
Pereira follows the mantra that if you treat your airplane right, it will return the favor.
“Commonly, this type of aircraft will have a pilot who may or may not be directly involved in the maintenance and ownership,” he said. “This takes a totally different approach when you are both the one flying and managing the aircraft – every expense comes directly out of your own wallet. Knowledge of the aircraft’s maintenance schedule, tracking of maintenance items and having a good understanding of the systems on your aircraft help you stay ahead of maintenance and not behind. Poor management of this aspect results in disruption of operations, affecting business and the aircraft’s proper use. And it can also result in unwanted failures, incidents and accidents that can often be unforgiving.”
Of course, Pereira understood all of the above before the purchase. Something he heard less about, though, was the need to acquire new fixtures to support the aircraft’s operation.
“Tooling of your hangar is an often-forgotten item in the list when planning to buy an aircraft,” he said. “[You must acquire] equipment used for day-to-day operations and periodic maintenance procedures, such as compressor wash procedures, which can often be deferred to a maintenance team but at a very high cost. Tooling of the hangar also represents a cost that should be anticipated. My grandfather used to say: the bigger the boy, the bigger the toy. [This is true] when it comes to towing equipment, GPU, washing equipment, ladders for routine inspections, hangar space, etc.”
Outside of the aileron backorder when initially purchasing the aircraft, Pereira has had good luck overall in the maintenance department. But the aircraft recently had a cracked right-hand windshield. As he recounted, there was stock available at dealers, but the asking price was nearly 10 times what the factory charges. While there was no stock on hand at Textron Aviation when he initially inquired, Pereira is happy to report that through a relationship with a Textron Aviation sales manager he was able to get a replacement part.
“We are a medical healthcare group. We are the little guy and operate with a lot of sacrifice and effort,” he said. “We don’t operate a fleet of planes, have deep pockets, buy/sell airplanes or own a stash of parts. All we needed was a windshield so we could continue our day-to-day operations, and we had one two weeks later.”
Investing in LJ-1251
The C90A can make the family’s frequent flights to El Salvador nonstop in about four hours and 15 minutes, with a little over an hour of fuel left in the tank. The dispatchability of the aircraft makes Pereira and his wife feel more confident that they will be able to make the now monthly trip without interruption to support Agencia Padilla Tablas.
“Getting there [900 nautical miles away] that quickly is not pushing it,” he said. “I like to keep my engines running at low temps, and I don’t go up to 30,000 feet because the -21s are temperature limited once you get over 22,000 feet. They start running out of air and getting hot, so I try to fly between 18,000 and 22,000 feet ideally.
“The engines are super economical, and I can be doing 240 knots at the right altitude, burning 90 gallons the first hour, 70 the second and almost down to 55 in the third and fourth hours. It’s crazy how economical these engines are. And there’s an old saying with the King Airs: If the door closes, it will fly. They have a great payload.”
When Pereira purchased the airplane two and a half years ago, the interior and exterior were in good condition. It had a new Garmin avionics suite, although still with a Collins APS 65, which he believes is superior in reliability and cost compared to the Garmin GFC 700.
He said he is going to continue investing in the aircraft outside of what is required by the book, to ensure the King Air operates at its best.
“We have performed a facelift of the interior to freshen it up, with new sheepskin cockpit seats, as well as new carpeting and sidewalls, LED lighting throughout, freshly overhauled four-blade props and a new Garmin radar,” Pereira said, noting that E & A Interiors at KFXE completed the work. “Hot sections are coming up next year, and the gear is due then as well. I think we have a plane that will last us a good while.”
Seeing the finished product has made Pereira reconsider his next move.
“The King Air is still doing our mission great, don’t get me wrong,” he said. “But we have started talking about getting an Embraer Phenom 100, a Cessna Citation M2 or a Beechcraft Premier 1A. I think we are down to the Phenom, but my family weighs in a lot and feels that they would be sacrificing the room and comfort [in the back] of the current plane. The King Air will spoil you in that sense, and my family prefers to be stretched out and more comfortable while going a little slower, rather than going faster and higher.”
So, the C90 is the answer … for now.
“The King Air is not only a solid platform – robust, versatile and dependable – it’s an icon and an institution in the world of aviation,” he said. “It is a great transition to jets, but also difficult to find one that will accomplish the wide range of missions the King Air is capable of.”
Grant Boyd holds a doctorate of education and is a private pilot and business aviation professional with a passion for writing. His background includes aviation marketing, communications, customer service and sales roles.