Last week, the FAA issued Safety Alert For Operators (SAFO) 23007 warning against acquiring suspected unapproved parts from a Bell 206B helicopter. The FAA noted that “suspected unapproved parts represented as being removed from civil aircraft N536T, which are actually from a foreign aircraft of unknown origin.”
The FAA began investigating the matter after its South Florida Flight Standards District Office (FSDO) received a hotline complaint alleging that an individual brought a foreign-registered 206B, believed to have been registered in Venezuela as YV2100, to Miami in 2017.
“The individual then installed a data plate, airworthiness certificate, and registration number from the destroyed N536T,” the remains of which he bought from a Texas salvage company in 2018, on the 206B of “unknown origin.”
The wreckage of N536T remains stored in Texas, according to the FAA. “The alleged violator re-registered the counterfeit N536T with the FAA under their name in 2018. As a result of the investigation, the alleged violator immediately and voluntarily surrendered the aircraft data plate, airworthiness certificate, and registration certificate. However, the aircraft maintenance records were not provided to the FAA.”
According to FAA records, N536T is a 2003 Bell 206B registered to 305 Helicopters Group, Inc. of Miami, Florida effective April 12, 2018.
The FAA said it issued the SAFO related to the investigation after it “recently received information that the alleged violator may be selling off the parts (including life limited parts) of the counterfeit N536T as if they were parts from the destroyed N536T.” The FAA advises Bell 206B aircraft owners, operators, and maintainers to review their maintenance records for any article traceable to N536T and to quarantine them “until eligibility for installation can be determined.”
The practice of illegal data-plate swapping was a central component of last year’s trial of Hansen Helicopters on Guam. Prosecutors accused Hansen and its co-defendant suppliers of using the practice to assemble “Frankenstein helicopters,” reassembling helicopters previously classified as destroyed and later rebuilt via data-plate swapping and other illegal means. Hansen and its CEO John Walker were found guilty of charges related to the practice, as well as dozens of other aviation crimes.
In 2020, Richard Paul Harper pleaded guilty to attempted aircraft parts fraud in Tennessee after obtaining a significantly damaged helicopter and switching its fuselage and data plate with one that had crashed in New Jersey. He then attempted to sell the reassembled helicopter to an undercover agent posing as an aircraft broker.