Azerbaijan has successfully passed its recent International Aviation Safety Audit (IASA), which was undertaken by the U.S. civil aviation regulator, The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The IASA program was established by the FAA in order to review the level of oversight by a countries civil aviation regulator and ensure it meets internationally recognised standards in regulatory oversight.

The FAA conducted the audit in October 2013, and entered a review and discussion process with the state regulator authority.

At the conclusion of this process Azerbaijan attained ‘Category 1’ status, which allows Azerbaijani-based airlines to commence unrestricted operations to the United States.

In late February 2014, the Chinese-based aircraft manufacturer, Xian Aircraft, requested that the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), distribute a directive to temporarily ground all Xian MA-60 turbo-prop aircraft, after potential design flaw in the aircraft was discovered.

The grounding was prompted by a landing gear indication incident that had occurred to a Chinese-based airline several days earlier, where the aircraft had landed safely after receiving an unsafe landing gear indication (which notifies the flight crew that the aircraft landing gear has not fully extended).

Sources indicate that there are approximately 88 MA-60 aircraft operating globally, all of which will now require inspections.

Several of the aircraft have since returned to scheduled passenger operations.

In January 2014, reports began to surface that a forensic financial audit of Air Zimbabwe had identified significant levels of internal fraud by the airline’s management.

The reports noted that government and airline officials had fraudulently embezzled approximately US$10 million over a four year period by falsifying insurance related documents.

In mid-February, the entire board of Air Zimbabwe was stood down, after an official investigation was initiated based on the findings of the audit. While the investigation remains ongoing, several charges have been issued to the airline’s current and past managerial staff.