The Nr Fairy
16th Jan 2006, 12:31
From an article on Yahoo.com. today:
STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS (Stockholm: SAS.ST - news) ) faced harsh criticism and the possibility of losing flight permits after it revealed that it had flown 10 planes that did not meet safety requirements.
"We received a harsh letter from (Scandinavian aviation authority) STK in which they state that if we do nothing to rectify the problem we could face" revoked flight permits, SAS spokesman Bertil Ternert told AFP on Monday.
He insisted however that "this will be solved without them resorting to such measures ... This is completely under control."
In the letter, quoted in Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet, authorities stated that the airline had "conducted business over the course of about a year with a number of aircraft that were not flight worthy," emphasizing "the extreme seriousness of these events".
The Scandinavian airline had itself notified authorities last November that 10 of its Airbus (Paris: NL0000235190 - news) aircraft had not undergone maintenance when they had been scheduled to, thus making it illegal to fly them.
"We think this is very serious ... It is very safe to fly, and it's supposed to be, because the security requirements are so stringent. You can't let that slip ... For planes to be considered flight worthy, all security checks have to be done at the right time," Swedish Civil Aviation Authority chief Nils Gunnar Billinger told AFP.
Ternert admitted the airline had "not done the security checks on the planes when they should have been done."
But he stressed that "we have since checked all the planes and they were all safe to fly ... This was an administrative glitch."
"We have begun rectifying this. The problem has been fixed," he added.
Billinger confirmed that all of the planes in question proved to be safe once they were checked, but added that the company's procedural problems still needed to be fixed.
"We want SAS to have a quality control system that ensures that they don't forget things and that this does not happen again," he said.
Link: http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/16012006/323/sas-rapped-flying-unsafe-planes.html
STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS (Stockholm: SAS.ST - news) ) faced harsh criticism and the possibility of losing flight permits after it revealed that it had flown 10 planes that did not meet safety requirements.
"We received a harsh letter from (Scandinavian aviation authority) STK in which they state that if we do nothing to rectify the problem we could face" revoked flight permits, SAS spokesman Bertil Ternert told AFP on Monday.
He insisted however that "this will be solved without them resorting to such measures ... This is completely under control."
In the letter, quoted in Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet, authorities stated that the airline had "conducted business over the course of about a year with a number of aircraft that were not flight worthy," emphasizing "the extreme seriousness of these events".
The Scandinavian airline had itself notified authorities last November that 10 of its Airbus (Paris: NL0000235190 - news) aircraft had not undergone maintenance when they had been scheduled to, thus making it illegal to fly them.
"We think this is very serious ... It is very safe to fly, and it's supposed to be, because the security requirements are so stringent. You can't let that slip ... For planes to be considered flight worthy, all security checks have to be done at the right time," Swedish Civil Aviation Authority chief Nils Gunnar Billinger told AFP.
Ternert admitted the airline had "not done the security checks on the planes when they should have been done."
But he stressed that "we have since checked all the planes and they were all safe to fly ... This was an administrative glitch."
"We have begun rectifying this. The problem has been fixed," he added.
Billinger confirmed that all of the planes in question proved to be safe once they were checked, but added that the company's procedural problems still needed to be fixed.
"We want SAS to have a quality control system that ensures that they don't forget things and that this does not happen again," he said.
Link: http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/16012006/323/sas-rapped-flying-unsafe-planes.html