Hardy Aviation in Northern Territory grounds its flights

One of the Territory's biggest airlines - Hardy Aviation - has grounded its flights. 
 
It follows days after the Hardy-owned Fly Tiwi grounded its regular transport services, but not its charter flights, the Northern Territory News reported.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) wrote to Hardy late yesterday about problems it identified in the past week and suggested a number of things that needed to be done.

CASA's Peter Gibson told the NT News it all started a bit over a week ago when Hardy's chief pilot failed a routine test - called a command instrument rating review.

"That meant effectively the airline didn't have its instrument rating,'' Mr Gibson said.

All commercial scheduled flights must fly by instrument flight rules. Charter flights can either use those rules or the more basic visual flight rules.

Mr Gibson said the original plan was for the chief pilot to re-sit the test.

"But in the interim ... we went in and looked at a whole range of things and decided there were other problems beyond just the chief pilot failing the review.''

CASA is now seeking to clarify what Hardy's response is to its communication yesterday. Hardy owner John Hardy is set to speak to the media later this afternoon.

Sources:
http://www.abc.net.au

http://www.heraldsun.com.au