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It is with great sadness that we received the news that Haraldur Diego, President of AOPA Iceland, has died in a plane crash in Iceland. We are extremely shocked by the news and our thoughts go out to his family and friends and especially to his wife Gunnur and three children. And of course also to the passengers on board of the plane and their loved ones.  

The accident happened on Thursday, February 3. Haraldur left in his Cessna 172 (TF-ABB) with three passengers for a sightseeing flight in the famous Golden Circle area. On board were a 22-year-old American influencer/Youtuber, a 27-year-old Dutchman and a 32-year-old Belgian, both of whom work for the Belgian fashion brand Suspicious Antwerp and were in Iceland professionally.  

Haraldur was very involved in the activities of IAOPA Europe. He frequently attended the international meetings, sometimes accompanied by his wife Gunnur and fellow IAOPA Iceland member Valur Stefánsson.

The cause of the crash is not yet known. No distress signal or warning was received from the pilot. He was very experienced, one of the most prominent pilots. Haraldur was also a pioneer in the field of photo round trips. Under his alter ego volcano pilot, he regularly posted photos on his website and on social media.

The police assume that the passengers were able to leave the plane after it fell into the nearly frozen water. This is evident from the bodies found about 300 meters from the plane. Nearly 1,000 people were involved in the rescue effort near the Thingvellir National Park, which is popular with tourists. 

Haraldur was a special person, always cheerful and upbeat. When Haraldur was around it usually turned into a party. His aviation activities therefore did not go unnoticed in Iceland. We found a nice article on an Icelandic aviation website which you can read here.

AOPA USA also paid attention to the death of Haraldur Diego. Read the article here.   
And here you find an interesting article about Diego's activities as a pilot on Iceland, with video.

Thanks to a recent agreement between Jeppesen and IAOPA Europe, members of all European AOPAs can now take advantage of a 15% discount on several of Jeppesen’s most popular products and services (both initial subscriptions and renewals):

·       Paper Charts

·       Electronic Charts 

·       iPad Apps 

·       Jeppesen databases (Garmin 430/530, GTN series, Garmin 1000 etc)

·       EASA Training Products

Members in the following countries can already now contact Jeppesen directly to take advantage of the offer using their AOPA membership number: Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden & Switzerland.

Members in other countries should first check up with their national AOPA to make use of the offer.

As of August 25'th 2016 all operators of complex aircraft in Europe will be required to comply with the new Part-NCC requirements. IAOPA has from the beginning worked to exclude particularly the very small operators from these requirements since they are not suited for a small organisation with maybe just one or two persons involved in the operation. Recently the EASA Committee has decided in favour of excluding turboprop aircraft with a MTOW of less than 5700kg. Operators of these aircraft will therefore NOT be required to submit a declaration and associated requirements for a management system and OPS manual.

For an overview of the requirements for operators of Non Complex Aircraft please consult the dedicated NCC page at the EASA website.

In order to assist those operators who are still subject to the new requirements IAOPA has together with EASA, national aviation authorities, ERAC and other Industry representatives worked to develop a template manual. This can be freely downloaded and modified by the operator. The template manual has been developed with a medium-sized NCC operator in mind. Work is still ongoing to also present a manual which is more tailored to the very small operator.

To download the template NCC manual please click here

Please note that you will have to work through the template and adjust so that it suits your operation. Also note that for a non-commercial operator your OPS manual does not have to be approved by your aviation autority. In fact you are not even required to submit it when you file your NCC declaration. However, you must have it available and be able to show compliance when you have an audit inspection from your authority.

The template manual is build on the principle that it includes more than what is required for most operators. It should therefore be possible to shorten it down considerably when you work your way through it and adapt it to your operation. Be sure to remove sections and procedures which do not apply to your operation so that the manual describes the way you actually operate. Otherwise you are making your first compliance audit harder than it needs to be.

The manuals are made available free of charge but financial contributions to support IAOPAs European activities will be much appreciated. Please contact iaopa@iaopa.eu for details.