Australia, N.Z. Ground Gippsland GA8 Airvans After Swedish Crash

(Bloomberg) -- Australia and New Zealand grounded Gippsland GA8 Airvan planes over safety concerns after a deadly crash in Sweden this month killed nine.

Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority halted operations of the planes made by Gippsaero Pty Ltd for 15 days from July 20, it said in a statement, adding it has sent an airworthiness engineer to Sweden to observe the crash investigation and collect relevant safety information. There are 63 GA8 aircraft registered in Australia out of a global fleet of 228, it said.

“CASA has been working closely with the Swedish and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency,” it said. “In response to CASA temporarily suspending GA8 operations in Australia, EASA has issued an Emergency Airworthiness Directive to European GA8 aircraft owners and operators to not operate the aeroplane except for ferry flights.”

The fatal crash occurred near Umea in northern Sweden during a skydiving flight, CASA said. The Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand said separately that information coming out of an initial probe showed the plane appeared to have suffered structural failure at 4,000 meters altitude.

The GA8 is mainly used in New Zealand on tourist flight-seeing operations, the N.Z. authority said, adding that 21 aircraft and 10 operators would be affected.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eduard Gismatullin in Hong Kong at egismatullin@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Shamim Adam at sadam2@bloomberg.net, Subramaniam Sharma

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