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Airlines and MRO providers should be on the lookout for non-airworthy engine parts after 12 containers were fraudulently redirected from their intended destination, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has warned.
Spain’s National Aviation Authority informed EASA that a consignment of formally declared non-airworthy turbofan parts was rerouted in late January 2026 from its destination.
The shipment consisted of 12 containers of engine parts, three of which contained critical or life-limited parts. These parts had not been rendered unairworthy by the contracted mutilation provider.
The theft covered more than 600 parts across four engine families: the CFM International CFM56, the IAE V2500, the Pratt & Whitney PW1100G, and the Rolls-Royce RB211.
EASA warned that the scale and method of the theft indicated the parts may be offered for sale on the open market.
It encouraged owners, operators and maintenance organizations to inspect their aircraft and inventories for the referenced part numbers and corresponding serial numbers; if any are found they should be removed and quarantined.
The notice appeared roughly a month after former techno DJ Jose Zamora-Yrala was jailed for four years by a British court for trading 60,000 parts with falsified documentation through his company, AOG Technics.
Airlines were forced to ground aircraft with AOG parts installed. While no in-service incidents were linked to the suspect parts, the disruption cost operators an estimated $53 million, the UK Serious Fraud office said.
The recent theft shows several similarities to that case, with low-value parts like bearings and seals targeted as well as an extensive array of serial numbers from the world’s most popular engines: the CFM56-5B and -7B.
Given tight supply and elevated pricing for legitimate parts, incentives exist for criminal activity in the aftermarket, although the industry will hope to avoid a repeat of the disruption and negative publicity generated by the AOG Technics case.
That case led to the creation of Aviation Supply Chain Integrity Coalition, an industry body that has recommended more investment in digital records, and wider adoption of electronic authorized release certificates (eARCs).
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