Grounded for Being 12: South Africa’s GA Fleet Finally Gets a Way Back Into the Sky

By Garth Calitz

Amendment 36 offers a possible route back to flight for Part 91 aircraft grounded solely because their engines reached the infamous 12-year limit.

In the past, owners of Part 91 aircraft reaching the engine’s 12-year calendar limit could mean only one thing: ground the aircraft, open the cheque book very wide and get in line for an overhaul — even when the engine had relatively few hours, good maintenance records and no obvious signs of distress.

That situation has now changed.

With the publication of the Thirty-Sixth Amendment of the Civil Aviation Regulations, 2026, in Government Gazette No. 55226 on 21 August 2026, affected aircraft now have a new regulatory pathway to return to service.

And, importantly, this is not simply a case of SACAA saying:

“Fine, the engine is 12. Let it fly.”

There is a little more to it.

This article is specifically about South African Part 91 aircraft grounded solely because their engine reached the 12-year calendar limitation. Any commercial operation that reaches 12-year TBO before accumulating the 2000-hour limit should rather consider closing the doors than try to keep aircraft flying.

If the aircraft has other airworthiness problems, expired inspections, previously outstanding ATOs, or unrelated defects, those are separate matters.

The question here is much simpler:

Your aircraft was airworthy, except that the engine reached the dreaded 12-year limit. What now? For these owners, Amendment 36 could be very good news.

The old system: 12 years and you're out

The controversy surrounding the 12-year engine requirement, which has affected an estimated 1600 aircraft, has been running for years and the basic problem was easy to understand.

An engine could have relatively low operating hours, a good maintenance history and satisfactory condition — but once the calendar reached the prescribed limit, the engine could no longer simply continue operating. The calendar had spoken.

The calendar, apparently, knows more about your engine than the engine does. This resulted in aircraft being grounded and owners facing potentially enormous overhaul bills. For a privately operated aircraft that might fly only 50 or 100 hours a year, the economics could become particularly painful and in some cases absolutely prohibitive.

An engine could be perfectly healthy from a condition perspective but still be grounded because it had grown too old according to the dreaded calendar.

Amendment 36 changes the conversation

The new regulatory framework moves the emphasis towards condition monitoring. Instead of relying solely on the engine's age, the question becomes:

What condition is the engine actually in?

That is a far more familiar concept to engineers than simply declaring an engine unhealthy because it has celebrated its 12th birthday. The new Condition Monitoring Programme (CMP) provides the mechanism for monitoring an eligible engine and demonstrating that it remains fit for continued service.

That doesn't mean owners get a free pass. It means they get a pathway.

So what does the owner actually do?

For an aircraft sitting in a hangar because of the 12-year rule, the first phone call should probably be to an appropriately approved maintenance organisation. Not Facebook or Avcom, not the guy at the airfield who says, “I've got an engine that's 28 years old and it's still running.” And definitely not the pilot who believes every regulation can be reinterpreted after the third cup of "Polisie Koffie".

The engine or engines need to be assessed properly.

Step one: establish its condition

The AMO needs to carry out the required initial condition assessment under the applicable programme. This establishes whether the engine is actually suitable for continued operation. The assessment will involve such things as engine performance, oil and filter examination, internal inspection and other prescribed checks.

The important principle is:

The engine must demonstrate that it is healthy enough to continue. Age alone is no longer the whole story.

Step two: Fix what needs fixing

If the assessment finds a problem, that problem doesn't disappear because Amendment 36 exists. A worn component is still worn. Corrosion is still corrosion. Metal in the oil is still a rather unfriendly message from your engine.

Any required corrective maintenance must be completed. And if the engine is genuinely unfit for continued operation, it may still need an overhaul.

The CMP is not an engine resurrection spell.

Step three: Establish a baseline

If the engine passes its assessment, its condition needs to be documented. Think of this as creating a health baseline.

The AMO establishes: “This is what the engine looks like now.” Future monitoring can then look for changes. That is important because condition monitoring isn't about asking whether an engine was healthy once. It is about asking whether it remains healthy.

Step four: Enter the monitoring programme

The owner then operates the engine under the applicable Condition Monitoring Programme. This is where responsibility changes. The owner cannot simply say: “The AMO checked it, so I'll see you in another five years.”

Oil condition, engine performance, inspections and other prescribed data become part of the engine's continuing airworthiness picture. If the engine starts telling engineers that something is going wrong, somebody needs to listen. Preferably before the engine decides to demonstrate the problem at 9,500 over the pine plantations of Mpumalanga.

Step five: Get the paperwork right

This may be the least exciting part of the process, but it is one of the most important. The aircraft records need to show what has been done and why the aircraft is now compliant with the applicable requirements. The owner should expect the documentation to cover the engine's history, the initial condition assessment, any corrective maintenance, the baseline condition and ongoing CMP requirements.

Because in aviation, if it isn't recorded, it has a nasty habit of becoming:

“It never happened.”

Step six: Return to service

Once the required work and documentation have been completed, the AMO can deal with the appropriate maintenance release and return-to-service requirements. And then, finally, the aircraft can potentially leave the hangar.

After all this time, the first flight may be surprisingly uneventful. Which is exactly what everyone wants.

What Amendment 36 does NOT mean. And this is important.

“All engines older than 12 years are automatically legal to fly.”

It does not mean:

“Forget the manufacturer's maintenance requirements.”

And it certainly does not mean:

“If your engine starts, it is airworthy.”

What it does is provide a regulatory framework in which continued operation can be based more heavily on demonstrated engine condition and ongoing monitoring, rather than an automatic overhaul requirement based solely on the passage of time, and that's a significant difference.

Why this matters to Part 91

This is particularly important for South Africa's private general-aviation fleet. A privately operated aircraft can have a completely different utilisation profile from a commercial aircraft. One owner might fly 50 hours a year. Another might fly 500. One engine may have spent much of its life working hard. Another may have spent much of its life sitting in a hangar looking expensive.

Treating both engines identically simply because the calendar has reached the same number doesn't necessarily provide the best indication of their actual condition. Condition monitoring recognises that reality.

The bottom line

For owners of Part 91 aircraft that have been grounded solely because their engines reached the 12-year limit, Amendment 36 potentially changes the game.

The route is no longer necessarily:

12 years → grounded → remove engine → overhaul → large cheque → fly again.

It can now potentially become:

12 years → condition assessment → rectify defects → establish baseline → enter CMP → monitor engine → maintenance release → fly.

There is still work to do. There is still paperwork. There are still inspections. There is still a necessity to have a competent, trusted AMO involved.

But there is finally something that has been missing for years:

A practical permanent pathway, based in law, back into the sky.

For the owner who has watched his or her prized aircraft slowly become a very expensive lawn ornament, that may be the best news to come out of the Government Gazette in quite some time.

And perhaps the biggest lesson from the whole saga is this:

An engine doesn't know what year it is. It knows whether it is healthy.

The job of the Condition Monitoring Programme should be to make sure we know the difference.