The incident: rejected take-off and a burst seat belt
In a real rejected take-off, things get serious: full reverse thrust, full brakes, maximum deceleration. That was the situation on a cold winter morning at a Swiss commercial airport during the take-off roll of a charter flight.
Things got even more serious in seat 19F: the passenger, clearly in the BMI-50 category, burst his seat belt and was thrown forward. Even with a passenger in this XXL weight class, that must never happen. Seat belts and their buckles are designed, tested and certified precisely for this purpose.
The technical examination showed that the tongue of the buckle had torn open. Normally this is a solid metal part with a square cut-out into which the locking mechanism of the buckle engages. The metallurgical analysis, however, revealed cheap tinplate – not certified aviation material, but a clear indication of a counterfeit part.
Internal investigation: from souvenirs to shadow workshops
I was brought in as senior advisor and applied my non-linear causality thinking on several logical levels at once. Looking back into the airline’s history, we saw that on these charter flights equipment regularly disappeared as “souvenirs”. In the more harmless cases, it was safety cards or sick bags. Less harmless: life vests taken from under the seat, or even oxygen masks ripped out and taken home.
The airline had a noticeably high replacement demand for passenger seat belts. We found that passengers were unhooking the belts from the attachment points on the seat and taking them home. Why anyone would hang a seat belt in their living room remains unclear – but the effect on the spare-parts logistics was obvious.
In an airline already operating in budget mode, this led to an aggressive search for “cheaper” supply sources. The internal investigations I initiated showed that the manager responsible for spare-parts procurement was not buying from the OEM, but from a dubious supplier in northern Italy.
Our attempt to involve the public prosecutor’s office at an early stage initially failed because of a clear lack of understanding of the safety relevance involved. After a sobering meeting it was clear that we would first have to clarify the facts on our own.
Through my contacts in the World Association of Detectives, we engaged two undercover investigators. They discovered that seat belt buckles were being cheaply manufactured in a former small motorcycle factory – from simple tinplate, without any aviation law approval whatsoever. The charter airline’s procurement manager was nevertheless paying the full OEM price.
Bogey Parts: expired parts “recycled” on paper
The investigation did not stop at seat belt buckles. Essential aircraft components have a limited service life. This is technically documented, traceable via serial numbers and often stamped directly onto the part – supported by airworthiness certificates (FAA Form 8130-3, EASA Form 1). The resulting replacement demand is considerable.
In one of the workshops under investigation, we found that expired parts were being “recycled” – not technically, but administratively: by grinding off markings and restamping alleged dates and serial numbers, and by issuing forged certificates. Expired components were thus turned into seemingly “fresh” spare parts.
In the industry, such counterfeit components, which appear formally documented, are referred to as “Bogey Parts”. At that point we were no longer looking at a single rogue seat belt, but at a systemic risk: counterfeit life-limited components in the spare-parts cycle of several European airlines – with potentially severe safety, liability and reputational consequences.
Implications for airline management
For the management of an airline, a number of clear takeaways emerge from this case:
- Spare-parts procurement is a risk and criminal-law topic – not just a matter of discount and budget.
- Abnormal parts consumption is an early-warning system – especially for safety-critical components.
- Suppliers must be qualified from a compliance perspective – paperwork and stamps alone are not enough.
- Internal reporting systems need serious follow-up mechanisms – so that hints about Bogey Parts do not just disappear.
- Undercover investigations can be appropriate – for example through specialised investigators and international networks.
Discreet solutions instead of public escalation
In this case, the Bogey-Parts issue was resolved with minimal publicity through my advice and targeted internal investigations: the supply chain was cleaned up, affected parts were replaced, the procurement manager was replaced (he had admitted his complicity in a tough internal interview) and responsibilities were clarified.
For the airlines involved it was a lasting wake-up call to close the gaps between procurement, maintenance and compliance – and to address Bogey-Parts risks proactively, before the next rejected take-off does not end as harmlessly.