DAVID LEARMOUNT / LONDON
The final European Joint Aviation Authorities notice of proposed amendment (NPA) on commercial single-engine instrument flight rules (SEIFR) has been released for comment. If approved, those European nations in which SEIFR is not allowed will probably - if reluctantly - allow such operations early next year, say industry sources.
Most of the requirements in the document have gone through the consultation process and the JAA says the only part remaining for public comment concerns maintenance, which specifies the required capability of operators and maintenance organisations.
Bob Crowe of Bob Crowe Aircraft Sales in the UK says: "The maintenance issues were essentially covered by JAR M and IR-M procedures, and as the appendix and revisions to the NPA were written by the JAA Maintenance Sectorial Team I would not expect more than a few general comments to be made during the consultation process."
The types affected are modern single-turboprop aircraft that have been equipped according to the exhaustive list already published by the JAA in JAR-Ops 1.247, which calls for a considerable degree of systems redundancy, plus equipment that could help with a no-power forced landing, such as a radio altimeter showing terrain closure rate and a powerful landing light that can work with no generator operating.
Operators of aircraft such as the Cessna Caravan, Pilatus PC-12 and EADS Socata TBM700 would be able to fly paying passengers at night or in instrument meteorological conditions, which at present they cannot except in North America and a few countries in Europe and elsewhere. Air taxi companies have argued for many years that existing modern single turboprops have a better safety record than piston-powered twins, but the JAA NPA has developed into a document that should make forced landings less likely in the approved aircraft, and boost the chances of passenger survival when they occur.
Source: Flight International
