Charles Taylor

Mar 25, 2023

Ed Libassi, a fixture at fixing planes, lands FAA achievement award Ed Libassi at MacArthur Airport on Friday. He received the Charles Taylor "Master Mechanic" Award from the FAA. Credit: John Roca Updated March 24, 2023 7:58 pm Share An achievement award named for the Wright brothers' mechanic has been given to a Shoreham mechanic who's been fixing planes since he was a teenager. Ed Libassi, 70, got the honor, the Charles Taylor "Master Mechanic" Award, on Friday, joining a roster of more than 3,000 recipients nationwide through the years. The award is given by the Federal Aviation Administration to recognize the lifetime accomplishments of senior mechanics who have been doing the job for at least 50 years. “Since I was 9, I just had the mechanical ability to take things apart, inspect them, understand how they work, repair them and put them back together again,” Libassi said in an interview. Taylor, the award's namesake, was not only the Wright brothers' mechanic but also credited with designing and building the engine for the brothers' first successful aircraft, according to the FAA website. Sign up for the NewsdayTV newsletter From breaking news to special features and documentaries, the NewsdayTV team is covering the issues that matter to you. Sign up By clicking Sign up, you agree to our privacy policy . The brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright were the clever bicycle mechanics credited with inventing the airplane. They took their first flight in 1903. Wilbur and Orville Wright, circa 1910. Credit: Touring Club Italiano/Marka/Univ/Marka Libassi, who grew up in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and moved to Kings Park with his family at age 9, is owner of A&P Aircraft Maintenance. The company maintains or fixes between 500 and 600 airplanes every year, he said. “We’ll maintain anything from a small Cessna 150 to a Southwest 737,” he said. The company is based at MacArthur Airport, in Ronkonkoma, where a ceremony in Libassi's honor was held Friday in a hangar. Libassi also has got a consulting business investigating crashes. The business is hired by insurance companies, lawyers and others, as a second opinion to the findings of federal aviation investigators. He never became a pilot, due to hearing loss suffered while working at Kennedy Airport decades ago. “Unfortunately, in the 70s and the 80s, it wasn’t something that we all keyed into, protecting our hearing,” he said. By Matthew Chayes