Surprised nobody has referred to this
There you go:
" ‘The hydraulic motor was a shambles and the flaps, autopilot and de-icing system weren’t working and there were several other problems."
They might not have used heating on the flights beforehand (which weren’t at night)
I think it was known very much before these recent events that this plane was very poorly maintained and operated on a shoestring, maintenance-wise and equipment-wise. That REALLY DOES cast a bad light at Part-91 maintenance of N-reg. aircraft in Europe.
boscomantico wrote:
I think it was known very much before these recent events that this plane was very poorly maintained and operated on a shoestring, maintenance-wise and equipment-wise. That REALLY DOES cast a bad light at Part-91 maintenance of N-reg. aircraft in Europe.
While on the face of it I agree, someone in Europe has signed of on an annual. Well I assume it had one.
I think the maintenance record of one aircraft reflects badly on exactly one aircraft, and more specifically its owner – who is solely responsible.
Edit – The only exception to that would be the individual responsibility of the A&P IA mechanic, if he were to have passed a non airworthy aircraft through its most recent annual inspection.
Silvaire wrote:
I think the maintenance record of one aircraft reflects badly on exactly one aircraft, and more specifically its owner – who is solely responsible.
That is not true. It also reflects on the A&P who signed off on it if it was actually unairworthy.
CO and not CO2… And I assume bleed air comes from compressor side, so few chances to have CO in it, just a few oil drops…
JasonC wrote:
That is not true. It also reflects on the A&P who signed off on it if it was actually unairworthy.
An A&P without IA does not certify airworthiness between Annuals, an Annual is not a guarantee of airworthiness over the next year, and maintenance (versus inspection) is the responsibility of the owner. What you are saying is only correct if it is proven that the A&P IA who signed the logbooks after the most recent Annual Inspection did so incorrectly. This is not a systemic issue, obviously, despite the unfortunate tendency of some to diminish individual responsibility when it is legally applicable in a system that is proven to work, and which functions as result of accepting individual responsibility as a necessity.
This is interesting:
He also claimed that regular pilot David Henderson, who was arrested and bailed in June on suspicion of manslaughter, was ‘unhappy with the maintenance’ and also named 45-year-old Faye Keely, an accountant from Nottinghamshire, as the owner.
Well, google finds a Fay KEELY who looks like an accountant from Derbyshire.
SAC was still the trustee; that much is known. None of the above is really relevant though, re the crash. May be relevant to who gets sued.
That REALLY DOES cast a bad light at Part-91 maintenance of N-reg. aircraft in Europe.
Not in my experience of operating an N-reg for 14 years and hanging around the GA scene and knowing a fair bit about it. It may be somewhat easier, in certain situations, to run a truly shagged old heap under N than under a European registry, but then the A&P/IA signing it off is taking a big risk, because all that needs to happen is for the owner to sell it, and the new owner finds the dodgy stuff and phones the FAA.
The FAA then terminate the IA with extreme prejudice. A guy not a million miles from here got his IA removed, later got his A&P removed, but, hey, he is still EASA66 (UK CAA licensed) so can work on G-regs 
I don’t know what exactly he did but presumably he signed stuff which he should not have signed. He was not dumb (a nice guy; I knew him) so he probably signed for stuff which he didn’t quite inspect, and quite possibly somebody actively concealed something from him. The result: he has lost much of his livelihood, and since most FAA engineers are freelance, he can’t hide behind a company which is what happens in EASA-land (where if you get crap work done you never find out who did it).
My A&P/IA never signs anything unless he has inspected it fully himself. Inspection covers all off… the lot. He knows anything less is a potential trap.
Whereas the CAA almost never does anything about crap G-reg maintenance companies. I could tell stories… Once I told them about a dodgy overhaul on a magneto and the CAA inspector told me to have a cup of tea with the company and sort it out!
Wherever I have been in my ~2500hrs I see the worst condition planes being on the local registry. In the UK, G-regs are the most neglected, with many maintained right on the margin. N-regs tend to be privately owned and looked after.
In Spain, where this one spent some time, the GA fleet (EC-reg) is mostly in a dreadful condition. The owners ran out of money when the EU grants started to run out…
So I would not say N264DB was representative of the N-reg fleet (which is mostly privately operated planes, owned by instrument rated pilots) in Europe at all. It was just one of a number of random old dogs which one sees around the place.
The BBC Wales report contains the usual immaterial trash about trusts concealing the identities of owners… The FAA has all the details, not the BBC.
The mystery owner of Emiliano Sala’s private plane registered the aircraft in the US using a British company paid £450-a-year to help keep their identity secret, MailOnline can reveal today.
The trust is required because an N-reg must be owned by a US citizen (or a Green Card holder). It is not done to conceal the owner’s identity, since nowadays the FAA demands knowing that. The BBC is p1ssed off that they can’t find out 
But one company linked to the has past and present directors based at three UK addresses.
But two of those were empty, with all furniture removed.
Sounds like a fairly high % of legitimate businesses in Wales
