Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 26 January 2017

Public Accounts Committee

2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 35 – Army Pensions
Vote 36 - Department of Defence
Chapter 8 – Disposal of the Government Jet

9:00 am

Mr. Maurice Quinn:

The Air Corps would apply civil aviation standards to the greatest degree. It is only in certain military aviation cases, where there are no civil aviation standards, that they cannot or would not apply. We get as close to it as possible and we follow civil aviation standards. The Air Corps put much work into that.

With regard to the engines issue, the corrosion issue was in the superstructure of the aircraft rather than the engines. There is a Rolls-Royce maintenance cycle and if the engines are on a jet, tight records are kept of flight hours, landings and so forth. There is a set cycle and we knew that was coming. The timing of it could move, depending on the extent of use of the jet. In other words, once the jet tipped over a certain number of hours, the engines had to go for the service.