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European Aviation Maintenance Standards Under Threat
CAPELLE AAN DEN IJSSEL, The Netherlands, September 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Maintaining the highest safety standards in aviation engineering is key focus of a three-day international conference in London. Aircraft maintenance experts from around the globe will meet from 20-23 September to discuss and evaluate the threat posed to European Aviation Maintenance. Feedback has unfortunately lead AEI to come to the preliminary conclusion that at present there is a worrying downward trend as far as standards are concerned. Observations made so far by AEI Affiliated Organisations are as follows: 1. Airline Pilots (unlicensed and unskilled in Aircraft Maintenance) illegally perform maintenance actions at outstations when the aircraft is grounded due to technical problems. 2. Abuse of "Single Event Authorisations" set-up to prevent an aircraft being stranded at an unknown airport after an unforeseen diversion of the flight. 3. Maintenance licences have been issued in a manner not compliant with the regulations. AEI has evidence of Personnel not being capable of performing maintenance for which they have been authorised. 4. During 2006 the EASA standardisation department has uncovered more than 1000 maintenance failings or non adherence/compliance to the regulations by the various European Aviation Authorities without follow up to solve them. 5. Present proposals to improve Maintenance Regulation's are bound to fail due to enormous commercial pressure applied by European Airlines and Maintenance Organisations. Just recently the EU has on several occasions made news headlines for imposing bans on Non European Airlines considered unsafe to enter into European airspace. The EU has no problem placing these "foreign" airlines on the "Black List" yet fails completely to manage those European airlines under its control by way of EASA. AEI considers it their responsibility to inform the flying public about these safety issues, issues which both industry and governments continue to ignore. Representatives from the EU Commission as well as EASA have been invited to participate in the discussion offering them an opportunity to explain their side of the story. A press conference will be held at the conclusion of congress on Saturday September 22 2007 15:00 Holiday Inn Hotel, Regents Park, London, United Kingdom For further information and Full Version extended press release contact the AEI secretariat at secr-general@airengineers.org or visit our website at http://www.airengineers.org/ under Congress 2007.
