On August 3, Airline Economics reported on this newsletter that all CFM56 MRO providers received a notice from CFM International on July 28 informing them about that falsified documents had been identified by regulators on certain CFM56 engine component parts. https://www.aviationnews-online.com/maintenance/cfm-investigation-reveals-falsified-parts-documentation/
It has taken some weeks for other industry press to pick up on the same story and only over the past few weeks has more attention been given to this issue, with those impacted beginning to make public statements.
United Airlines, Southwest Airlines and Virgin Australia have all been reported to have discovered dubious parts in their CFM engines supplied by AOG Technics, based on reports from Bloomberg and Business Insider. However, the total number of dubious parts and affected engines remains unknown.
Commenting in this week’s Airline Economics magazine, Jonathan Berger, Alton Aviation Consultancy’s MRO advisory practice lead, said that the industry appears to be keeping a very tight lid on this issue, but the potential fallout could be significant. “We haven’t heard the term “bogus parts” in the aviation industry for what feels like decades and most industry observers assumed the issue was eliminated due to strict regulations and robust quality control processes,” says Berger. “What we don’t know if whether this was a few isolated incidents or if the scale is much larger than indicated. While there is very high demand for used serviceable material at the moment, and spare engine parts are scarce, I wouldn’t however suggest that this is a root cause of illegal behaviour such as this.”