Australia's Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) has accused the Civil Aviation Safety Authority of over-regulation and trying to destroy the public's confidence in Australia's general aviation industry.
The criticisism follows AOPA's handling of an emergency airworthiness directive involving fuel injector servo plugs on Lycoming and Teledyne Continental piston engines.
In mid-March the CASA issued an emergency AD to check Precision Airmotive fuel injection servo units for looseness in the plug.
The AD follows the release of a similar one by the US Federal Aviation Administration following 18 reports of fuel injector servo plugs that had loosened or backed out of the threaded plug hole, resulting in an accident involving a Piper PA32-301FT.
The servo plugs are found on a number of GA engines, including Lycoming, Teledyne Continental TSIO-360RB and Superior Air Parts IO-360 series, fitted, rebuilt or repaired since August 2006.
Issuing the AD, CASA said the directive would ground up to 3,000 GA aircraft in Australia pending inspection for the fault. AOPA, however, criticises CASA for "sensationalism", saying that the AD affected up to 200 aircraft and that no instance of the fault had been found in Australia to date.
"This is typical CASA over-regulation and over-reaction," says president Col Rodgers.
AOPA criticises CASA for insisting that a licensed aircraft maintenance engineer conduct the checks, adding that many aircraft would be located at remote or isolated airfields.
In response, CASA has amended the AD to allow pilots to undertake the initial assessment, with the aircraft to be flow to a maintenance facility if necessary.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
