Ryanair finds ‘fake parts’ in aircraft engines

Chris Price
Fri, 1 December 2023

Ryanair

Ryanair has found “fake parts” in two of its aircraft engines during scheduled maintenance checks, becoming the latest airline to be impacted by a brewing scandal.

The parts were discovered during assessment in Texas and Brazil over the past few months and have since been removed from the engines, the low-cost carrier’s chief executive Michael O’Leary told Bloomberg News.

It comes as the global aviation industry is grappling with a fake parts scandal that has left airlines and regulators scrambling to assess engines and trace equipment.


Aviation regulators have accused an obscure London company called AOG Technics of supplying thousands of engine parts with faked certification documents for Airbus and Boeing models, including older-generation 737s used by Ryanair.

Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines are among the carriers reportedly that found suspect parts.

The Civil Aviation Authority said in August that it has been investigating the supply of a “large number of suspect unapproved parts” through AOG Technics.

Mr O’Leary said the Irish airline has never conducted business directly with AOG, receiving the component for two engines instead via third parties.

He added the carrier remains “largely unaffected” overall by the scandal.

Airlines were told to check their stocks of spare engine parts after reports around AOG started circulating earlier this year, according to Mr O’Leary.

The discovery of so-called fake parts comes after Ryanair was forced to make changes to its winter schedule after Boeing delayed deliveries of aircraft.

The setback prompted Mr O’Leary to say he could scrap future orders if the US aviation giant continued to miss delivery targets.

In October, he said: “It is frustrating because the demand for travel is very strong and we think there are a lot of competitors who are going to be grounding their aircraft.”

The company said to be at the centre of the scandal, AOG Technics, has been accused by US engine giant General Electric and its French business partner Safran of large-scale fraud that they allege has led to fake or old parts being falsely installed into more than a hundred engines.

AOG’s founder and owner Jose Zamora Yrala, who founded the business from a rented terraced house in Hove on the South Coast, is fighting the allegations.