EASA Pulls Eclipse 500 Type Certificate
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Fred George fgeorge@san.rr.com
The European Aviation Safety Agency said Wednesday that it has notified Eclipse Aviation of its decision to suspend EASA Type Certificate IM.A. 171 covering the Eclipse 500 aircraft effective June 12, 2009.
EASA further requested Eclipse to notify any person to whom this could be of concern. Eclipse Aviation invested several million dollars and spent months of development time to achieve the EASA TC in November 2008 because it was viewed as essential to opening up the market for the aircraft in Europe, a source close to the program told AWIN.
Virtually all Eclipse 500 VLJs that have been delivered have U.S. registration certificates, so the EASA ruling will have no immediate effect on aircraft in service. But the announcement does potentially have an adverse impact on the value of Eclipse Aviation's intellectual property that Jeoffrey Burtch, Eclipse's Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustee, intends to sell at auction. Any potential buyer for Eclipse's assets would have to clear the EASA suspension to make new or existing EA 500 aircraft eligible for registration in any of 30 European nations.
Photo credit: Eclipse Aviation
