After last good congress in Malmo we had a large media campaign following our congress with the text heading: European Authorities Finally Start Responding Positively To AEI Aircraft Safety Warning.

We expressed encouraged feeling and improved confidence authorities industry was listening to its recent safety warnings.

At AEI’s Annual Congress in Malmö EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency) confirmed that the SAFA (Safety Assessment of Foreign Aircraft) Inspection programme had also uncovered evidence of defects not being entered as they occur. Despite the nice words it was difficult to get the message out since everybody was screaming for evidence while we expressed this was so easy to find for anyone willing to start looking since we felt we do not want to jeopardize our members job by given evidence given to us in confidence.

It took until the strike of our colleagues in Portugal around Christmas 2008 where the pressure on our affiliate was high, the falsifications so hard that we felt no other road was open to us then fight it hard. We contacted the Portuguese pilots organisation with this evidence and where more or less ignored as fairytale tellers, we approached the authorities informed EASA with hard facts and went loud in the media. Even then our message was only heard when we put the fact clearly on the AEI website with name and number. We must be fair that EASA played its role in this and put pressure on the authorities to actively investigate these gross fraud issues.

It resulted in severe investigation and of course TAP was not happy and trying to “shoot the messenger” instead of solving the continued fraud. A positive item is that the investigation on the record of airlines in relation to the flight is now standard practises and we have to see where this will lead.

In a number of other countries this process is now underway and the first results are showing up revealing what we have told all along.

Abuse of MEL is also a growing problem.

Along these lines the discussion arose in the AEI board that we have an increased abuse of the MEL (Minimum Equipment List) use. According the various manufacturers documents it is clear that an aircraft can continue flight with some defects according the MEL limitations. Important to say is here that this is only possible when the source of the defect is known. This can only become known after trouble shooting by qualified engineers, and that is where the reality deviates from the “intention” so to say.
This often not done (for various reasons such as delay, no persons directly available for doing so, “Pilot now what to do” or thinks so?, or their organisation pushes them to ignore) and therefore these aircraft are flying in an un-airworthy condition.

AEI issued press releases and sent letter to EASA and CAA’s and requested there official position. (without any positive response so far) Furthermore we would like to receive a clear statement from EASA on the use of the MEL. This request is: “Is the MEL a tool to enable operators to continue flying without disrupting the flight schedule or is it a document which should only be referred to once a fault has been correctly diagnosed?

                The complete report is available on the Members page!