Luxor Air banned from flying in the Netherlands
 

Luxor Air (Egypt) has been banned from flying in Dutch airspace after a recent safety control by the Dutch Authorities.

The decision was made when a Luxor Air aircraft could not comply with the safety demands re loading and determing the weight of the aircraft.

The aircraft was allowed to leave Schiphol after the flight preparations had been properly executed on the order of the Dutch authorities.

Despite repeated requests Luxor Air and the Egypt Airline Authorities did not take necessary precautions to prevent recurrence. This was the reason to ban Luxor Air from Dutch Airspace. The ban has been taken over by Italy, Belgium and Switzerland.

Apparently it was the first time an airline was banned in the Netherlands.

Luxor Air already has been banned in France in March when one of their aircrafts passed too low over the city Nantes. According the pilot he was lost...

How can pax be protected from these cowboys?

As long as the Egyptian CAA does not do their job properly you can do nothing.

Same reasoning for the UAE CAA.

Following the episode of the attempted landing on the streets of Nantes, Luxor Air was banned for 10 days before being allowed to pick up pax again in France.

Then came the SAFA check in AMS and tuesday's ban in Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy. The French banned Luxor Air again (for the second time in a month) only yesterday night.

I'm quite curious to see how long Luxor Air will be banned this time. In the previous "boulevardstormer" episode, the ban was lifted after a quick investigation and the firing of the Venezuelian captain (F/O back to flight school).

This time Luxor Air and the Egyptian CAA have a tougher homework assigment in finding acceptable answers for those JAA countries.


Cap 56,
I'm not sure I catched your drift. Are you talking about the privatization of the ECAA or the usual "blame someone else and let us do business"-attitude ?

By reading boards like to pprune to somewhat educate ourselves of risks involved. That's why I am here (believe it or not)! Accidents happen even in the most highly regulated countries if people don't do their jobs.

Altough I don't know anything about the LUXOR AIR deal or incident(s), I do know the dutch CAA inspectors are biased, and very unfair. I believe a country conducting a ramp check should not ground/ban an aircaft/airline, without doing a proper check themselves. The Dutch CAA just buys whatever they hear from another country about a certain airplane/airline, without conducting an inspection themselves. Same goes for the Belgian CAA.

As far as I know, after the SAFA check the CAA-Netherlands first requested improvements from the Egyptians who didn't reply. Then they decided to ban the airline until an appropriate answer is given. The UK CAA did that with Air Memphis for 3 years.

Dear wheelchock, get your act together before responding with this nonsense...... The Dutch CAA did a SAFA based on the reputation of the Airline. This made errors clear that needed to be adressed, these where not adressed thus they where not allowed.. i.e. THEY DID A CHECK. Do you have any suggestions how they could have done this better???

All the European CAA's have become much more open in the last few months due to the error in non communication prior to the Flash Air incident. And the less Flash Air/ Onur Airs / Air Luxors share my airspace the better!!!! :ok:

wheelchock , it might also be a good idea to include the correct airline in your quote. The airline banned is LUXOR AIR of Egypt and not AIR LUXOR of Portugal.

trainer too 2,

Errr, my point exactly... Also what I wrote is no nonsense. My company got ramp checked in Switserland, and the Swiss were not happy with the condition of our aircraft, and decided to let us ferry fly the airplane out, but without a load. The same aircraft landed a week after that in The Netherlands, where it was met by the Dutch CAA. The Dutch CAA would not allow us to take a load onboard and told us we could ferry fly the airplane out.

An inspection was never done by the Dutch CAA, the inspector involved had heard about our ramp check in Switserland, and decided it wouldn't operate commercially out of The Netherlands neither. This particular aircraft had been worked on after the Swiss ramp check, and discrepancies had been rectified by maintenance. However, the Dutch CAA never botherd looking at it, their mind had already been made up.

So dear trainer too 2, before you open your piehole, I suggest you think first.

Avman: Sorry, have corrected the name, altough that's not my point.

Well Wheelchock, Maybe those guy's didn't have the proper papers on board...???
When an airport authority tells you (or colleage) to ferry a plane empty to a place where things can be repaird you are allready with the wrong company, even worse is that they didn't notice it themselves... That kind of pilots should only fly over restricted aera's like the ocean or desert..., but if I where you I wouldn't bother to come back to Holland again, that way I can sit and relax in my back yard instead of hiding in the shelter when one of your company planes fly over...

How come that there is a SAFA report available then, did the guy just phone to Swiss and just change the date on the papers... :rolleyes:

If I have to choose between the word of the Dutch CAA or from somebody who as Avman pointed out cannot even get the name of his own company right it is fairly easy for me to be biased. :eek:

ps I got the info of the rampcheck from one of your own handlers at AMS, with confirmation from the CAA as well so go figure.. :8:

Gentlemen,

The luxor air thing in schipol was a full inspection by the authorities that went ok except for a small misunderstanding about the incoming load and trim sheet that was abaord teh MD83. The discussed the matter with the capt. and the athorities requested a report on why is it that the Weight and Balance data on board the aircraft was not properly endorsed by the ECAA. The company responded to both schipol authorities and ECAA 3 days ago. If the plane is really unsafe, how was it allowed to carry passengers out of Amesterdam going back to Egypt????????????? Which it did????????????????????

So if it's a minor misunderstanding, why is it banned by the Dutch Authorities then? :uhoh:

Well I dont really know, all Im saying is if its something major, the authorities would not have let them take off back to egypt with dutch people on board. Would they?

trainer too 2,
Errr, maybe you need to go back to school, and learn how to read....I never wrote that I work for LUXOR AIR ...... You seem to keep on making the same mistake....Read and think before you post nonsense....

Most of these inspections by regulatory authorities interfere with cockpit preparations/procedures. There have been occasions that some Inspector comes on board and begins pestering the crew with questions about maintenance logs, ship certificates, equipment checks ( that are not part of cockpit preparation) etc. And all this is going on while the crew at a changeover station is busy preparing for flight/departure, is busy with FMS, briefings. Are the authorities not concerned that they in their zeal to monitor and or advance flight safety are actually taxing the crew that should be best left alone to perform their primary functions in an orderly and safe manner.

I don't mean to say that inspections should not be carried out, but if I ever have to put up with the arrogance of the Inspectors, I will just hold the boarding etc. and once all the queries are dealt with would then commence my cockpit preparations and boarding. If in the bargain the departure gets delayed or a slot missed then so be it. Pass the delay, inconvenience to paxs and financial impact, on to these inspectors. Just hope the 'more loyal than the king' DFO doesn't bug me on return to base.:cool: :ok:

A step forward would be to have JAA inspectors who have the authority to take any jumpseat whenever they wanted.

Spotchecks.