No links to Italian spare parts

Kurt Sansone

A spokesman for Air Malta, yesterday confirmed that the national airline has never bought any aircraft parts from the fraudulent Italian company Panaviation, laying to rest fears raised by the Italian authorities’ probe into Panaviation’s fake spare parts scandal.

Italian investigators are suspecting that the company sold second hand and untested aircraft spare parts to airlines. False documentation stated that the parts were new and tested accordingly.

A police raid on a warehouse in Rome on Saturday yielded thousands of aircraft parts in connection with the investigation.

Italian investigators believe that the fraudulent parts may have been stripped from redundant planes, by unqualified people.

The Air Malta spokesman also confirmed that the national airline has never sold any parts to the Italian company. The spokesman added that Air Malta has not received any warning from the Civil Aviation Authority on the Panaviation scandal.

Italian police, in collaboration with the FBI are looking at possible links between Panaviation and two plane crashes, one in New York last November and another in Genoa in 1999.