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.

In late January 201 4, an Avianca Fokker
50 turboprop aircraft suffered a minor
engine malfunction prior to its departure from Cali, Colombia.

As a precaution, Avianca decided to ground its limited fleet of ageing Fokker 50 aircraft until an investigation into the cause of the engine malfunction could be concluded.

The Fokker 50 aircraft, which had an average age of just over 20 years, had already been earmarked for withdrawal and were set to be phased out by the end of 2014.


In late February, Avianca decided to
permanently ground its remaining fleet of Fokker 50 aircraft, with the airline citing the aircraft’s reliability issues as the primary motive for the grounding.