What you need to know about the counterfeit airplane engine parts scandal

09.10.2023 - 15:25 / thepointsguy.com

Airlines worldwide are checking their aircraft amid reports of counterfeit documents surrounding engine parts installed in certain jet engines.

More than 100 aircraft have been found to contain questionable parts in engines manufactured by CFM International, a joint venture between General Electric and French aerospace firm Safran. Several of those aircraft are operated by U.S. carriers, including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines.

Want more airline-specific news? Sign up for TPG's free new biweekly Aviation newsletter.

At the center of the scandal is a U.K. firm called AOG Technics, which serves as a broker for spare aircraft parts. CFM has accused the company of forging safety documentation for various engine parts, which were eventually installed on the aircraft during maintenance. The specific engine that has been affected, the CFM56, is used on a variety of aircraft, including some older Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 family jets.

A total of 126 engines globally contain parts sold by AOG Technics, according to an accounting by Bloomberg, while 95 falsified documents have been uncovered.

What remains unclear is whether the engine parts in question are actually shoddy or if it's simply the documentation that is unreliable.

The Federal Aviation Administration typically must approve all parts that are used as replacements on aircraft through its Parts Manufacturing Approval program, an FAA spokesperson told TPG. Parts that have not undergone the PMA process can make it into the supply chain, however. This led the FAA to create a specific program to investigate Suspected Unapproved Parts in the 1990s.

In some cases, the FAA spokesperson said, companies may produce parts but will skip the PMA application "to avoid the time and cost of the process and the uncertainty whether we'll agree the part is of equal or better quality than the original," which is the FAA's standard for replacement parts. That means that even if those parts are built at full quality, the FAA has not verified it.

In an advisory posted to the SUP webpage, the FAA noted that the parts sold by AOG Technics came with PMA documentation that appears to be fraudulent, with improper formatting and missing boilerplate text.

Ultimately, however, it does not necessarily matter whether the parts are substandard or whether they're just missing the authentic documentation. Without genuine documentation that verifies that the parts meet all quality and safety standards, the FAA requires that they be removed.

So far in the U.S., the scandal does not appear to have impacted any airlines' operations. Each of the affected airlines has pulled the impacted aircraft from service.

Delta, the latest U.S. carrier to