The Director of Civil Aviation suspended the airworthiness certificate of the sole aircraft – a Cessna private jet – after the UK firm which supplied specialist technical support to the registry unexpectedly ceased trading.
The jet has now been grounded until the certificate is renewed.
The action was taken by the DCA last Thursday and a new service provider is expected to be formally in place today or tomorrow.
Assistant Economic Development Minister Murray Norton, who has political responsibility for the project, stressed that the development was a ‘technical issue’ beyond the control of the department.
It is, however, the latest problem to hit the registry which cost more than £800,000 to launch two years ago and by earlier this year had brought in less than £12,000 in registration fees.
At its peak just two aircraft – a helicopter and the Cessna – were signed up. The helicopter left the registry in recent weeks. Guernsey’s registry has more than 160 aircraft while a similar enterprise in the Isle of Man has almost 1,000.
Deputy Norton said the grounding would have no real impact on the registry’s aircraft.
‘If we had a large number of aircraft on the registry this would be a scary prospect.
‘But we only have one aircraft and we have spoken to the owner and he has confirmed that it is undergoing maintenance in Bournemouth and is therefore not affected.
‘When we were notified of the situation we began work on rectifying the problem. Through no fault of our own we have been left without a technical service provider – it is a technical issue,’ he said.
The problems began when UK-based firm Avisa, which provided technical support to the registry, was bought by technical consulting firm CAVOK last month. CAVOK has not, however, continued the service provided by Avisa.
The move left the JAR with no technical support, forcing Gus Paterson, the Director of Civil Aviation in the Channel Islands, to suspend the certificate of airworthiness of the Cessna under the Air Navigation (Jersey) Law.
The department were informally made aware of the buy-out on 22 August. On 4 September, the move was confirmed formally by emailed letter, which also proposed an interim six-month solution. Within hours of the DCA stating that the proposal was not acceptable, the department had agreed a contract with a replacement provider. It is now awaiting approval from the DCA.
In a statement, Mr Paterson said: ‘A UK-based company called Avisa was providing some specialist technical services under contract to the Government of Jersey.
‘These were mainly functions required under the Air Navigation (Jersey) Law 2014 and related to airworthiness and continuing oversight of Jersey-registered aircraft.
‘The company unexpectedly ceased trading at the end of September, with the result that I had to provisionally suspend the certificates of airworthiness of Jersey-registered aircraft last Thursday.
‘This step was not taken lightly, but was necessary to ensure that Jersey remained compliant with the relevant international obligations whilst we work to secure an interim arrangement with a new technical service partner.
‘My office is working closely with officials at [Economic Development] and we hope to have arrangements in place very shortly that will allow the provisional suspension to be lifted.’
