Safety Warning Ignored

A safety warning the Aircraft Engineers International (AEI) organization published after its Congress in London last September and sent to all the European Aviation Authorities, has received little response, let alone support or acknowledgement from these authorities, according to AEI. "Although the...

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A safety warning the Aircraft Engineers International (AEI) organization published after its Congress in London last September and sent to all the European Aviation Authorities, has received little response, let alone support or acknowledgement from these authorities, according to AEI.

"Although the safety warning was clear and precise and specifically informed the authorities where this evidence could easily be found, AEI is of the opinion that no Authority is willing to investigate and / or report any findings to AEI. The Authorities more or less stated that their system of inspection was excellent and that they followed their own procedures, which did not revealed major malfunctions. It would appear the Authorities do not want to open a "Pandora's box" to discover unwanted truths," states Fred Bruggeman, AEI secretary general.

"The apparent ignorance of the European National Aviation Authorities regarding their own systems concerns AEI. They claim that they have never observed pilots not writing down defects when they occur. Why would they? Nobody would speed with a police officer sitting next to them. As authorities they want to play it safe by looking at procedures rather than find errors," he believes.

"If they do find systematic errors it means they have failed in their purpose or is it they have been looking the other way for too long? This omission may be too confrontational to handle, or in the case when National Authorities do find malfunctions, they are required to confront their national airlines, and they are more interested in maintaining "good" relations rather then carry out their main function of safety," Bruggeman said.

AEI will continue to press this issue, demanding an investigation of the failure to carry out this request. "As aircraft engineers, we take our jobs seriously and therefore AEI has initiated a request to our members to record aircraft registration, logbook date and defect," he said.