The Podilskyi District Court in Kiev, Ukraine, has ordered the seizure of five AN-124 aircraft owned by Russia’s Volga-Dnepr Airlines.
According to the law firm Ilyashev & Partners, which represents State Enterprise Antonov, the seizure has been issued due to alleged unauthorised maintenance checks of the AN-124 aircraft.
Roman Marchenko, senior partner at Ilyashev & Partners, said: “According to State Enterprise Antonov, the investigations and the court, the admission of AN-124 aircraft to further operation violates the provisions of the ICAO Convention on International Civil Aviation and Airworthiness Manual.”
He added: “The arrest of property is allowed to ensure the safe-keeping and integrity of physical evidence and compensation for damages caused by the criminal offence”.
State Company Antonov initiated legal proceedings against the Federal Agency of Air Transport of the Russian Federation (Rosaviation) and the German company AMTES, part of the Volga-Dnepr Group, for the falsification of airworthiness certificates in July 2018, as HLPFI reported in the September/October 2018 edition of the magazine.
Volga-Dnepr Group deems the Ukrainian court order “unlawful”. In an official statement, the company added: "Volga-Dnepr Group believes that the court order is fundamentally unsubstantiated, so are the chances to enforce it in the foreign jurisdictions.
"Volga-Dnepr Airlines is fully authorised by the Russian aviation authorities for international flights without any restrictions. It complies with all international regulations governing civil aviation. All necessary actions will be taken to object the said order, as well as to draw public attention together with the attention of the international governmental institutions to the current situation."
