Italian airlines on alert after parts 'scam' warning

Italy's civil aviation authority has issued a warning to all airline operators to check that outdated or faulty parts had not been used in their aircraft, in the wake of a probe into a second-hand parts scam which has sent ripples of fear through the airline industry.

The aviation authority, ENAC, said it had notified some 300 companies to carry out urgent controls on any parts purchased from the Italian companies under investigation.

Six Italians including the head of a leading brokerage firm, Panaviation, Enzo Fregonese, were arrested last Saturday accused of trafficking in second-hand parts with false documentation.

The inquiry began in the Sardinian town of Tempio Pausania nine months ago and has attracted the attention of the FBI and the US Federal Aviation Administration because of a possible connection between falsely certified parts and recent air disasters, including the crash of an American Airlines jet over Queens, New York, in November last year that killed 265 people. The crash occurred when the tailfin, made of a composite plastic, broke off the Airbus A-300 just after take-off from Kennedy airport.

The ENAC document says any suspect parts must be segregated and companies must decide whether to substitute any suspect parts immediately or wait until the normal replacement date. It also said that any airlines who had bought parts from the companies under investigation and then sold them on must notify the end users.

As well as Panaviation, Italian prosecutors are investigating two other brokerage firms, New Tech Italia and New Tech Aerospace. Panaviation is reported to have had dealings with major airlines over the years, including Air France, Swiss Air, and Lufthansa, although Air France and Lufthansa yesterday denied they had any dealings with Panaviation.

Police last Saturday raided a hangar at Rome's Fiumicino airport where six Alitalia A300 Airbus planes, that had been sold to Panavision, were being stripped without the required safety authorisation. These parts were about to be sent to Danbee Aerospace in North Carolina, which had advertised the new offers complete with photos on their website.

The use of second-hand parts is routine in the aviation industry, but the danger comes from fake certificates which state incorrect age and state of the components.

"These are highly complex machines. Everything is part of a huge, complex jigsaw. Once one part of the jigsaw goes then there is the potential for others to fail in quick succession," said Chris Yates, security editor for Jane's Transport. Italian police have seized thousands of aircraft parts and documents. Colonel Aniello Albano, of the Guardia di Finanza in Sardinia, said his squad of ten men were now "trying to reconstruct the life history of some ten thousand pieces". He said the task could take several months.

A purchasing officer of the Meridiana airline company, has also been arrested accused of taking a 7 percent backhander of the price of parts from Panaviation, in return for turning a blind eye to the dubious origin of the components.

The owner of Danbee Aerospace, Dan Batchelor, said yesterday he trusted Panaviation. "People have been pulling parts off aircraft since the Wright brothers. You pull them off, you get them certified, that's how it is done," he said.