Fed: Safety body grounds all light aircraft after fuel fears

AAP General News (Australia)
12-24-1999
Fed: Safety body grounds all light aircraft after fuel fears

MELBOURNE, Dec 24 AAP - All light aircraft in Australia were today grounded by the
aviation safety body pending checks over potentially dangerous contaminated fuel.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) said it had issued an "airworthiness directive"

to all light aircraft operators over the fuel, which has already caused one aborted take-off.

Spokesman Peter Gibson said the directive required all aircraft to be checked for the
contaminated fuel by a qualified maintenance engineer.

He said if the contaminated fuel were found, certain steps must be taken to clean the engine.

Mr Gibson said since news of the contaminated fuel was released yesterday, CASA had
received numerous reports from around Australia of light aircraft with engines running
roughly.

However, there had been no further incidents reported, he said.

Mr Gibson said the directive had been faxed to aircraft operators around Australia
and posted on the Internet.

He said the nature of the contamination of the fuel remained a mystery, except that
it was a "black, sticky" substance.

Sales of aviation gasoline (avgas) supplied from Mobil's Yarraville terminal in Melbourne
were suspended yesterday at all airports in Victoria, NSW and southern Queensland until
further notice.

Mr Gibson said the fuel was traced to a Mobil depot at Yarraville in Melbourne's west
and had been distributed to Moorabbin and Essendon airports in December and possibly late
November.

"It's clearly a contamination of a chemical nature. You can't see it," Mr Gibson said.

"The fuel looks normal but what it does is corrode brass and rubber parts in the fuel
system and then that causes deposits in the engine."

Mobil said in a statement that it was meeting the CASA and technical experts to review
the situation.

A number of avgas aircraft fuel system problems had been reported to them over the
past several days, a Mobil spokesman said.

The reports related primarily to light aircraft using avgas supplied at Moorabbin airport.

Aircraft using jet fuel were not affected, he said.

Authorities were alerted to the problem after a recent Victorian incident in which
a light aircraft suffered engine failure before take-off.

"The take-off was aborted after the engine failed and the plane was taken back and
the engine stripped back to discover what went wrong," spokesman Peter Gibson said.

"They tracked back from that and found that the fuel had started corroding parts in
the fuel system of the aircraft - the carburettor and the fuel system.

"This was causing deposits in the engine which then caused the engine to fail," he
told ABC radio.

AAP gf/er/kr

KEYWORD: AVIATION (CARRIED EARLIER)

1999 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.