THE Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) will keep a closer eye on Brindabella Airlines after grounding four of its planes for neglecting scheduled engine inspections last week.
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But the airline will not be penalised for the breach.
Two of the Jetstream aircraft are yet to be cleared for use, but CASA spokesman Peter Gibson said the planes could be back in the air by the end of the week dependent on Brindabella.
It is understood the Orange/Sydney service resumed on Sunday.
Mr Gibson said Brindabella told CASA they had overrun the required engine inspections and the authority chose to also order a review of maintenance in the past 12 months for all the aircraft.
“The schedule of maintenance sets out in great detail everything that has to be done.. it’s a legal requirement under the safety regulations,” he said.
“Our system doesn’t have fines for this sort of thing, but we’ll certainly be taking a look at Brindabella as to why the issue happened and the steps to ensure it doesn’t occur again.”
Mr Gibson said CASA detects maintenance breaches through audits, spot checks and surveillance, but it was the responsibility of each airline to undertake inspections at the right time.
“Passengers should be reassured this was the aviation system working, appropriate steps were taken to check and double check [the aircraft] with ground runs,” he said.
A spokesman for Brindabella did not return calls for comment.
On Friday night the airline’s Facebook page said it sincerely regretted the disruption and was working with CASA to conclude the air worthiness review on the grounded aircraft.
