Air N.Z. fleet back in air next week?

Press, 15 June 1979, Page 1

Air N.Z. fleet back in air next week?

PA Wellington Civil Aviation officials in Wellington hope that Air New Zealand's DCIO fleet can be allowed to fly again next week. In significant developments in the DCIO controversy yesterday. the French Government took firm steps to put European-registered DClOs back in the air by Tuesday, and it appears that the British will follow. The Director of Civil Aviation (Captain E. T. Kippenberger) said in Wellington last evening that he was in touch with both the French and British by telex.

Captain Kippenberger said that he had asked the French Deartment of Civil Aviation for details of the process under which it was reissuing DClOs with new Certificates of Airworthiness.

The French have drawn up a series of checks and once these are made the aircraft will fly.

Captain Kippenberger said that New Zealand ccsild reissue the Air New Zealand DClOs with a Certificate of Airworthiness by first adopting the European check list. “We are quite hopeful that Air New Zealand DClOs will be back in the air next week,” he said.

Civil aviation lawyers believe there is little in the New Zealand-United States air agreement which would prevent recertified DClOs using United States airspace, even if United States-registered DClOs were still grounded.

A telex from the F.A.A. which arrived at the Civil Aviation Division last evening suggested that the F.A.A. was now beginning to accept that wrong maintenance procedures confined to one or two United States airlines caused the

faults which led to the wholesale DCIO groundings after the Chicago DCIO crash.

Captain Kippenberger said that the telex also had said the F.A.A. was hopeful of going to court next week and overturning a judge’s order preventing the grounding order’s being lifted.

Les Bloxham reports that the European certifications are expected to run into heavy legal flak, particularly in connection with the finance and insurance companies on which most airlines heavily depend.

As one senior aviation industry' representative pul it: “Even the thought of an airline’s electing to fly a type of aircraft that has not been cleared by the country of its manufacture for safety reasons is enough to send shock waves through the insurance world.”

Most of the airline’s long-haul sendee is geared to the North Pacific, to Honolulu and Los Angeles. An F.A.A. ban would even keep the koru out of Pago Pago.

Hong Kong has also indicated that the restriction on its airspace will not be lifted until it gets the nod from the F.A.A A spokesman for the airline operations division of the Department of Transport, in Melbourne, said that the question of DC 10 access to Australia would probably be reviewed if and when the European authorities reached a decision. However, he said that the Australian department’s attitude was likely to be conservative. In the meantime, Air New Zealand has already filled the first three of its special Pan American Boeing 747 flights, which will leave Auckland for Los Angeles on June 20, 22, and 24.