Lisbon, May 27, 2026 (Lusa) - Portugal's public prosecutor (MP) on Wednesday charged three people with endangering air safety and other crimes for the alleged sale of substandard engine parts to airlines, including TAP.
The defendants, who have been in pre-trial detention for about a year following the Judicial Police (PJ–the country's main criminal investigation agency) "Voo Cego" (Blind Flight) investigation, include a businessperson and two aircraft maintenance employees, one being employed by TAP Maintenance & Engineering (TAP M&E).
The Central Investigation and Criminal Action Department (DCIAP) said that the three defendants, along with a British citizen, engaged in the illicit appropriation of aeronautical parts and components from airline stocks between 2015 and 2023. Their targets included TAP and Portuguese Hi Fly. They allegedly sold these parts to certified maintenance, repair, and aircraft operations companies, including TAP M&E, using forged airworthiness documentation.
The British citizen allegedly devised the plan and sold the parts through a United Kingdom-registered company, AOG Technics.
Authorities detained the man in the UK in 2023 following a complaint from TAP M&E that components purchased from AOG Technics "did not meet the airworthiness requirements demanded by the original manufacturers of CFM56 engines." The scheme then continued through another company established by one of the now-indicted defendants.
A Portuguese Air Force expert report concluded that a "high number" of the marketed parts "presented risks classified as high or medium for use in operating engines, posing a danger to the life of passengers and aircraft crew, as well as to the aircraft themselves."
Two of the defendants are also suspected of "hiding income obtained in the 2019 and 2020 tax years through these practices from the tax administration", DCIAP said.
The public prosecutor's indictment requests that the three defendants be ordered to pay the state approximately €1.1 million and nearly US$13,000 as "illicit advantages".
Prosecutors charged the suspects on 22 May with criminal association, endangering air transport safety, aggravated passive corruption, aggravated passive corruption in private trade, embezzlement, fraud, document forgery, qualified theft, illegitimate access, computer damage, and qualified tax fraud.
The investigation began in February 2024. From the following November, it operated "under a Joint Investigation Team with the UK's Serious Fraud Office", which, like the DCIAP, focusses on combating highly complex financial crime.
TAP confirmed to Lusa in May 2025 that searches had been conducted at its facilities "related to a judicial case" in which the airline "is the complainant", though the company declined to comment further at the time.
IB/RYOL // AYLS
Lusa
