Fake (and dangerous) parts have been sold for old Boeing and Airbus planes
European aviation authorities have singled out a London firm for supplying "unapproved parts" for the jet engines of aging Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 aircraft.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency wrote in a statement to Bloomberg : " Several Authorized Release Certificates for parts supplied through AOG Technics have been forged."
London-based AOG Technics has sold CFM56 jet engine parts to third-party repair shops that deal with older A320s and 737s. EASA said the parts had certificates the manufacturer was unable to authenticate or to confirm “that they were not the origin of the part”.
“Manufacturers and regulators sounded the alarm weeks ago, sparking a global race to track down parts supplied by AOG Technics and identify affected aircraft,” Bloomberg said.
Certification example
EASA said the parts with a "falsified Authorized Release Certificate" concerned CFM56 engines installed in older narrow-body aircraft. The regulator has told airlines to quarantine parties that potentially have false documentation.
A fake part can be very dangerous for commercial aviation: all parts of an aircraft are certified for their structural strength. A certified part may not have these qualities and therefore, subjected to wear, yield, causing serious accidents. This is not just a possibility: there have been cases in the past and with deaths, hundreds of deaths. Italy was also involved in the problem in the past .
“ Part documentation is a very critical issue ,” said Klaus Mueller, senior advisor at AeroDynamic Advisory and former executive at MTU Aero Engines AG and the maintenance division of Deutsche Lufthansa AG.
Mueller added, " The industry is taking this topic very, very seriously ."
This development poses a significant problem for European airlines, as the number of falsely documented parts that AOG Technics has supplied to airlines has not yet been determined.
According to Bloomberg, CFM International, the GE-Safran company that makes the engine, alerted customers and repair shops about the fake certification documents and unapproved parts for the CFM56s.
EASA has stated that if a party has falsified documentation, “it is recommended to replace it with an approved party”.
An added headache for airlines operating older A320s and 737s, because finding fake parts on their planes will take time. And this happens even when spare parts for airplanes are scarce.
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The article Fake (and dangerous) parts have been sold for old Boeing and Airbus planes comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/parti-false-e-pericolose-sono-state-vendute-per-vecchi-aerei-boeing-e-airbus/ on Sat, 02 Sep 2023 06:00:35 +0000.