Poor Airworthiness Standards To Blame

Bulgaria is in danger of losing European landing rights for almost a third of the aircraft in its fleet. The European Union will ban any Antonov aircraft from landing on the continent because of that make's high accident rate and generally poor safety record.

As ANN reported, Cyprus is also facing a ban on its aircraft because of lax airworthiness standards.

The European Safety Aviation Agency, together with the Joint Aviation Authority discovered substantial lapses in aviation safety for Bulgarian commercial aircraft. The report said that Bulgaria needed to take immediate corrective steps regarding aircraft airworthiness, maintenance, operations and flight crew licensing.

According to the Bulgarian-language news website Mediapool, 100% of Bulgarian cargo carriers and agricultural aviation companies are using only Antonov An-12, -24, or -26 aircraft. These Russian-designed cold-war era cargo and ag-planes are now over thirty years old and parts are getting harder to find and maintenance more difficult to achieve.

The Sofia World reports that six months ago, Bulgaria’s Air Space Administration (ASA) adopted an action plan aimed at solving the problem. The plan would have all aircraft lacking EU standard certificates be taken out of service by April 2007.

The problem is... no one told the Bulgarian Air Carrier Association that its planes would be grounded, and now it is working hard to find a solution. There may not be a practical answer, though... and all the Antonovs may be grounded by May 28 of next year.

So far, the only recommendation the Bulgarian ASA has for affected carriers is to go on the used market and try to find some second-hand planes that do meet the European Union standards.

FMI: www.easa.eu.int/home