The long-standing rules, banning single-engined commercial operations under instrument-flight-rules (IFR), will be withdrawn in the USA, if a Federal Aviation Administration notice of proposed rule-making is accepted.
If it occurs, this will be a blow to US/European regulatory harmonisation, because the European Joint Aviation Authorities appears to have no intention of relaxing the twin-engine requirement for passenger flights, even if it eventually allows restricted single-engined IFR cargo operations.
The rationale for the proposed FAA change is that engine reliability is much higher now than it was when the regulation was drafted, and also that allowing qualified pilots of single-engined aircraft to fly under IFR makes flights safer than operations in marginal weather conditions under visual flight rules. The latter is a frequent cause of controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) accidents, according to US National Transportation Safety Board statistics, which show that CFIT is a more common cause of fatal accidents to single-engined aircraft than engine failure.
Meanwhile, in the European Union (EU), some small operators are worried that "unfair" competition may occur during the two years between the April 1997 introduction of cross-border cabotage within EU countries and the 1999 full implementation of the Joint Aviation Regulations on commercial single-engined operations.
The concern is that low-cost single-engined operators from nations, which have domestic regulations allowing such operations, will be able to operate services in those countries, which do not have such regulations.
For example, Bob Crowe, of UK-based Bob Crowe Aircraft Sales, applauds moves towards single-engined commercial IFR approval, but claims that UK operators will in the meantime be constrained to use twins and will suffer from unrestricted French, Irish and Scandinavian competition.
Source: Flight International
