FAA Ends Brief Pipistrel Import Ban

Stephen Pope

Thursday, August 23, 2012 at 08:12 PM ET

Verified

Pipistrel Alpha Trainer

Key Takeaways:

Pipistrel Aircraft faced a week-long FAA ban on importing its LSA models into the U.S. because the agency couldn't verify the airplanes' manufacturing location.
Pipistrel, based in Slovenia, built a factory in Italy specifically to leverage Italy's bilateral certification agreement with the FAA, as Slovenia does not have one.
The import ban was lifted after the FAA, which initially struggled to locate Pipistrel's Italian factory (reportedly via Google Earth), confirmed its existence and resolved the verification issue.

See a mistake? Contact us.

Pipistrel Aircraft is again being allowed to import its LSA models into the U.S. after the FAA imposed a week-long ban on the grounds that the agency couldn’t verify where the airplanes were actually being built.

Pipistrel is based in Slovenia a few miles from the Italian border. Because Slovenia doesn’t have a bilateral certification agreement with the FAA, Pipistrel built a factory in Italy, which does have a bilateral agreement with the U.S.