Scottish budget airline Flyglobespan pleaded guilty to two charges of breaching civil aviation rules after allowing a plane with instrument failure to fly at a court in London today. The Edinburgh-based firm admitted allowing a leased Boeing 757 to operate a flight from Liverpool Airport to New York to take off when engine pressure sensors had failed.
The prosecution was brought by the aviation industry watchdog, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). It is the first time that the CAA has brought such a prosecution against an airline in more than 10 years.
Westminster Magistrates' Court heard the crew had to manually adjust the throttle and use a handbook. The CAA told the court the crew on the previous flight to Liverpool had been informed about the problem. The company said there was never any risk to passengers.
Alison Slater, acting for the CAA, said the sensors that indicate the thrust of each engine had failed. She said that by declaring the aircraft serviceable to fly later that day, on June 28, the company had breached safety regulations that require at least one engine pressure indicator to be working for a plane to fly.
Stephen Spence, defending, said the sensors were not universally installed in all aircraft. He said: 'The workload increases, but it increases to what we would submit is an acceptable level and well within the capabilities of the pilot.'
He said the crew on board the flight from JFK to Liverpool had managed without incident or mishap to fly the plane for more than six hours after they discovered the fault, before landing successfully at Liverpool.
He said the clearance of the flight to return to New York had arisen because of a misinterpretation of the rules. He stressed the airline had been under no commercial pressure to continue operating the flight, as there were only 20 passengers on board when it took off. He added: 'I stress that there was never at any stage any question in the minds of anybody of putting people in danger. Two offences arose out of one set of circumstances.'
Mr Spence said the airline had recognised there had been a failure at an early stage and had rectified it. He added that the company had worked closely with the Civil Aviation Authority. He said the aircraft in question had since flown more than one million kilometres across the world, the equivalent of 42 times around the globe, perfectly legally since then.
District Judge Timothy Daber, said it was 'clear' to him the plane had been capable of working safely and agreed there was no danger to passengers. He said the incident was not a deliberate flouting of the minimum equipment list requirements and resulted from a 'misinterpretation' of that list. He also noted that the company had removed senior members of staff responsible for the breach and had co-operated with the CAA.
But he said the sensor was 'clearly there for a reason', to enhance the safety of an aircraft. He said there was a 'heavy duty' on airline operators to ensure the minimum equipment list and breaches like this could not be tolerated. He said:'Any fine has to be commensurate with the considerable means of the defendant company in this case.' The case was referred to Southwark Crown Court for sentencing. |
