Major Airlines Reportedly Duped: Delta, United, Others Searching for Jet Engines Built with Questionable Parts
The race is on as several major North American airlines are scrambling to track down jet engines that could be compromised by potentially faulty parts.
According to the Wall Street Journal, many of America’s largest airlines are working to track down “thousands of jet engine parts with fake safety certificates that were installed on their planes.”
According to the Journal, at least 126 engines have been found that have been built in part with these questionable parts. Those questionable parts include things as mundane as nuts and bolts, all the way to turbine blades.
Those dubious engines have prompted American Airlines, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines to pull various aircraft from service.
Delta Air Lines, meanwhile, has acknowledged that it has pulled several engines from service, and is changing out the necessary pieces.
As the hunt for these potentially faulty engines goes on, it’s worth noting that the issues can be traced back to a little-known (though, perhaps now infamous) U.K.-based AOG Technics.
That organization, which the WSJ describes as a “broker of airplane parts,” came under intense scrutiny when these issues first came to light last month.
In September, reports began circulating that various airlines had discovered faulty parts in their engines after AOG Technics allegedly falsified safety certifications.
The issue has been significant enough that, weeks after the fact, it appears airlines are still searching for these potentially compromised engines and have yet to track them all down.
While there don’t appear to have been any accidents or incidents connected to these falsified safety certifications, the mere fact that the U.S. air industry has been rocked again by scandal is just the latest headache for Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
The former Democrat presidential hopeful has had a polarizing tenure as the United States Secretary of Transportation and a string of controversies has left Buttigieg the target of much ire — and not just from the expected Republican critics.
In July, a disastrous Fourth of July weekend left many airports and airlines overwhelmed and effectively crippled, stranding a number of passengers on an already-hectic travel day.
That weekend, all manner of critics lambasted Buttigieg for his seemingly laissez-faire attitude to air travel.
In fact, Buttigieg’s overarching tenure in charge of America’s various systems of transportation has yielded some questionable results.
A number of reports and studies have found that air travel in the country has been as unpredictable as it has ever been under Buttigieg’s purview.
To be clear, there is absolutely no indication that Buttigieg played any role in the approval or implementation of these AOG Technics parts.
Both air travel and the aerospace global supply chain are fickle and complicated things that Buttigieg can only exert so much influence on.
But as the search for engines with those questionable parts continues, this controversy is just the latest in what have been nothing but turbulent skies for Buttigieg.
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