Tuesday, August 20, 2019

CAAN temporarily suspends all flights of Simrik Airlines

The aviation regulator has temporarily suspended all flights of Simrik Airlines from today as it failed to meet the standards of the Civil Aviation Regulation 2002.
According to Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), it has suspended all flights of Simrik Airlines after the airline company failed to meet the technical standard of airworthiness requirements under the Civil Aviation Regulation. The CAAN inspection team had found that the airline company was using substandard spare parts in its aircraft. Airline companies are allowed to use spare parts permitted by CAAN only. According to CAAN, the inspection team had inspected the aircraft and its workshop on August 18 and 19. A year back too, the airline was found to be using substandard spare parts, however CAAN had not taken any action against the firm back then and only directed it to get proper maintenance done of its aircraft. “But this time, CAAN has grounded both its Beechcraft 1900 series aircraft,” it confirmed, adding that basically CAAN has two levels of inspection findings – level I and level II. “Earlier, the aircraft was in level II, so we directed the company to do the required maintenance works.” But this time the inspection finding was at level I, forcing the regulator to suspend flights.
“The Director General may issue an order to cancel the airworthiness certificate of such aircraft or to suspend it for up to the period mentioned in the same order in case an aircraft is flown in contrary to the terms and conditions mentioned in the airworthiness certificate provided to any Aircraft and the prevailing law related to Civil Aviation, these Rules, Annex and Manual,” Rule number 20 of Chapter 4 of the Civil Aviation Regulation reads.
The aircraft will be grounded until the airline company replaces its spare parts and conducts the required maintenance of its aircraft. After conducting the required maintenance, the airline company has to submit an application to CAAN requesting for resumption of its flights.
Established in 2009, Sirmik Airlines has been operating domestic flights to Bhairahawa, Bharatpur and Pokhara.

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