Another incident on Wednesday has prompted the Civil Aviation Authority to ground half of regional airline Airlink's fleet due to "a series of serious aircraft incidents and accidents"

Airlink's Jetstream aircraft have been grounded, the Star Newspaper reported on Thursday.

Late on Wednesday night, the Civil Aviation Authority said the fleet was grounded following a CAA audit after "a series of serious aircraft incidents and accidents" over the past three months, and another incident in Nelspruit on Wednesday.

The CAA suspended the air-worthiness certificates of 14 Jetstream aircraft from midnight on Wednesday. They may not fly again until the CAA had re-certified each one.

The rest of Airlink's fleet ? BAE 146 and Embraer 135 aircraft (a total of 9 planes) ? may still operate.

"SA Airlink produced a corrective action plan (CAP) which the CAA reviewed and accepted as being sufficient to address the findings, if it were to be implemented fully.

"However, it is important to highlight the fact that this corrective action plan would only be fully implemented by the end of January 2010," said the CAA.

The CAA was inspecting the Airlink operation when another incident occurred on Wednesday with an aircraft aborting take-off from Nelspruit due to low oil pressure and smoke coming out of the left-hand engine.

"As a result of this second incident, which is similar in nature to the one that occurred in Durban in September 2009, resulting in one fatality, the CAA resolved that the safety and airworthiness of the SA Airlink Jetstream aircraft fleet could no longer be guaranteed," the CAA said.

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