Eclipse Aviation founder and former CEO Vern Raburn wants nothing more to do with the company and will not accept a post promoting the airplane internationally. Raburn issued a press release late last week saying he has some irons in the fire and will let his “media friends” know what he’s up to. Meanwhile, his former company is essentially asking the media to stop asking so many questions about its future. In an unusual statement on Thursday, the company denied unpublished rumors that the company was moving out of Albuquerque. The statement reads, in its entirety:
Today, Eclipse Aviation confirmed that the executive management team is working diligently to develop a plan to achieve operational excellence. We are evaluating every aspect of the company and we will announce a plan to profitability by the end of the month. Eclipse also confirms it has no intention to move its production facilities outside of the United States in contrast to some current media speculation. Eclipse will not be releasing any further information or conducting interviews surrounding this media alert at this time.
Meanwhile the forums and inboxes continue to hum with off-the-record speculation.
As we’ve reported earlier, AVweb has heard directly from Eclipse officials in recent days in response to direct questions about the rumors we’ve been hearing. The hearsay that Eclipse seems most anxious to quell is that it’s packing up the Albuquerque factory and moving to Russia. In an e-mail to AVweb on Wednesday, Eclipse spokeswoman Alana MaCarraher had this to say:
To answer your question… we have heard nothing about shutting down our current operation and moving to Russia. We are still moving forward with our plans to open a facility in Russia, but we do not plan on shutting down any of our facilities here in Albuquerque.
