S7 Technics’ Engineering centre assists Somon Air with aircraft re-registration

To complete the assignment, one of Somon Air’s Aruba-registered Boeing 737-900s made a maintenance shop visit to S7 Technics’ Domodedovo, Moscow site, while all of the necessary works required on the second aircraft were fulfilled by field crew at Istanbul airport (Turkey).

In each case – at Domodedovo and at Istanbul – the engineering centre’s specialists performed three tasks. The first was a general visual inspection of the aircraft, comparisons of any acceptable structural damage and repairs on the actual aircraft against its logbook records, and also inspection to ensure that all cabin and emergency equipment items are located in accordance with the appropriate diagrams.

In the second stage, the engineering centre’s experts checked and, where necessary, amended Somon Air’s continued airworthiness documentation to ensure its compliance with BCAA’s requirements.

Finally, full aircraft airworthiness reviews were conducted in order to enrol Somon Air’s Boeing 737-900s on the Bermuda aircraft register. The reviews’ subsequent reports provide summaries on the airworthiness documentation checks and visual inspection of the aircraft in compliance with BCAA’s requirements.

The engineering centre is able to provide such assistance to Somon Air because S7 Engineering (part of S7 Technics holding) holds BCAA’s OTAR 39 Subpart F approval and already has extensive successful experience in carrying out such continued airworthiness checks in support of Russian and international airlines.

“This was the first time that our group has provided support services for transferring aircraft between registries. All operations were made in close cooperation with Somon Air and with BCAA, and were supported by S7 Engineering’s quality directorate, which allowed us to complete the mission within the required tight schedule,” comments Leonid Shoshin, head of S7 Technics’ Engineering centre.

 Notably, during its stay at S7 Technics’ base at Domodedovo, Somon Air’s Boeing 737-900 was subjected to the so-called Customs ‘inward processing procedure’, a requirement that complies with the Customs regulations of the Eurasian Economic Union, and one that applies to all foreign aircraft undergoing maintenance procedures.

“Thanks to their established co-operative relationship with Domodedovo Customs, S7 Technics’ Customs specialists took just six hours to put the aircraft through the inward processing system. This enabled the maintenance team to start work on the aircraft almost immediately and, once the works were completed, the same amount of time was spent on terminating the Customs process, which is actually a good result for such a complicated procedure. As a result, Somon Air ended up quite happy with S7 Engineering’s services for supporting its aircraft registration. At the same time, S7 Engineering obtained new competences,” says Alexander Makunin, head of S7 Technics’ Customs operations directorate.

To complete the project, the new VQ-prefix registration numbers for Somon Air’s Boeing 737-900s were painted on their tails at Domodedovo, before both aircraft were returned to service with the Tajikistani carrier.

Note. The engineering centre has been part of S7 Technics since 2006. Its experts provide solutions for the continued airworthiness of customer airlines’ aircraft, as well as engineering support and other assistance to operations departments.