Paul Duffy/TEHRAN
Iran's Civil Aviation Organisation Flight Standards (CAO FS) has announced a series of new regulations designed to boost its airline safety standards.
Although a number of the new rules have been proposed for some months, others follow the crash of a Yakovlev Yak-40 short-haul trijet in which the country's minister for roads and transport died (Flight International, 29 May-4 June).
Farast Air, a subsidiary of Qeshm Air, operated the aircraft which was wet leased from Armenian Airlines.
The new rules require allYak-40s to be withdrawn from operation by the end of this month, and the larger Yak-42s by the end of the year.
This is understood to reflect a failure by the Yakovlev design bureau to address queries raised by the CAO FS about hot-and-high operations. This is likely to be appealed by the Russian lessors of Yak-42s, who are proposing that a Tehran maintenance and support centre be opened for the aircraft type.
The CAO FS has also given operators until next March to ensure that "at least 50%" of their capacity is owned by the operator.
Many of the country's 18 operators do not own their aircraft, and most leased or wet-leased aircraft come from CIS countries.
Other new rules call for expatriate flight crews to be fully trained for Iranian operations.
It has been stipulated used aircraft acquired for Iranian fleets must not be more than 10 years old, and leased aircraft not more than 15 years old.
This rules out the Yak-40, production of which ended in 1980. Earlier, the CAO FS banned the Antonov An-12 four-engined turboprop cargo aircraft on grounds of age.
Aviation sources in Tehran state that Iran, which is still subject to US sanctions imposed in 1979,has a requirement for up to 40 medium-sized passenger jetliners and a similar number of regional aircraft.
Source: Flight International
