The Italian Civil Aviation Authority (Ente Nazionale per l'Aviazione Civile - ENAC) has grounded seven DHC-8-Q400s operated by SkyAlps (BQ, Bolzano/Bozen) after safety checks revealed a number of "non-conformities", leaving the operator with a single active aircraft in its fleet.
Inspectors discovered a number of unspecified "deficiencies" during the audit, conducted between February 26 and 28.
"The discrepancies highlighted the existence of deficiencies in aircraft maintenance attestations with respect to the flight safety regulatory requirements set out in EU Regulation 1321/2012," the regulator said.
ENAC added that certifications provided by an unnamed maintenance specialist at SkyAlps were not compliant with aviation safety regulations. The employee was subsequently banned from accessing the airports where SkyAlps operates.
Seven aircraft will remain on the ground until the airline applies corrective actions. ENAC announced it will continue to monitor the company and will approve the corrective measures.
ch-aviation asked the Italian airline for comment but did not receive an answer by the time this article was published.
According to the ch-aviation fleets module, SkyAlps currently operates fourteen DHC-8-Q400, of which one is on the AOC of its technical partner Luxwing (BN, Malta International). Nine aircraft are registered in Malta and the remaining four are in Austria, although the latter have not been active since March 2020 and have yet to be effectively inducted into SkyAlps' fleet.
FlightRadar24 ADS-B data show that only a single Q400, 9H-PAUL (msn 4255), is active as of March 4, 2025. Three others, 9H-EVA (msn 4237), 9H-SOP (msn 4242), and Luxwing-operated 9H-PET (msn 4104), were active until March 1.
ENAC said that SkyAlps retained its air operator's certificate (AOC) and was looking for replacement aircraft.
