In late November 2013, the Australian civil aviation regulator, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), grounded four Jetstream turbo-prop aircraft being operated by Australian-based regional operator, Brindabella Airlines, after the regulator had identified that the aircraft were overdue for mandatory engine maintenance.

On the 12th of December, CASA then proceeded to ground the remaining six aircraft in the airline’s fleet until a maintenance review could be conducted on all of the aircraft.

Two of the original four grounded aircraft have since been returned to service. As a result of the recent grounding, the airline was consequently restricted to operating two aircraft out of a total fleet of ten. The airline has since gone into receivership.

On the 29th of November a LAM Mozambique Airlines Embraer E-190 regional jet was en route to Luanda, Angola, with 27 passengers and 6 crew, when radar contact with the aircraft was suddenly lost.

A search for the missing aircraft was subsequently initiated, which was initially hindered due to storm activity in the region.

On the 30th of November the Namibian civil aviation regulator received reports from Botswana authorities and villagers located in the Sambesi Region of the Bwabwata National Park, that they had identified the crash site of the aircraft, which technically fell within Namibia’s borders.

Namibian authorities reached the crash site on the same day, and confirmed that the aircraft had been completely destroyed.

The Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder have since been recovered and are currently being analysed.

The aircraft was reportedly en route to its destination, when it suddenly began to descend at a rate of 6,000 feet per minute.

No communication or emergency was relayed from the flight crew. There are no immediate indications of what may have caused the accident.

On the 16th of October 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice and the collaboration of American Airlines and US Airways officially reached an agreement regarding the airlines’ proposed merger.

The Department of Justice had originally blocked the merger of the two airlines due to the potentially anticompetitive implications resulting from the merged airlines’ slot allocation at a number of U.S. airports. As a result, American Airlines and US Airways agreed to relinquish 52 pairs of takeoff and landing slots at Ronald Reagan-Washington National Airport and 17 pairs of slots at LaGuardia Airport.

The Department of Justice will subsequently be tasked with distributing the slots, which will likely be distributed among a number of U.S.-based Low-Cost Airlines. The merger is now expected to be finalised in December 2013.