Compania Română de Aviație Romavia R.A., usually referred to as Romavia , was a state airline from

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

, owned and controlled by the Romanian Ministry of National Defense. It operated VIP and charter flights, serving the demands of the Romanian state and its politicians. Romavia had its headquarters in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

, with the base for its flight operations being located at the city's airports

Henri Coandă Henri Marie Coandă (; 7 June 1886 – 25 November 1972)''Flight'' 1973 was a Romanian inventor, aerodynamics pioneer, and builder of an experimental aircraft, the Coandă-1910 described by Coandă in the mid-1950s as the world's first jet, a co ...

and

Băneasa Băneasa () is a borough () in the north side of Bucharest, in Sector 1, near the Băneasa Lake (). Like all north-side districts of Bucharest, it is relatively sparsely populated, with large areas of parkland. Bordering on Băneasa Forest, ...

.Information about Romavia at the Aero Transport Data Bank
/ref>

History

Romavia was formed by the Romanian government in 1990 and launched flight operations the following year.

Flight International ''Flight International'' is a monthly magazine focused on aerospace. Published in the United Kingdom and founded in 1909 as "A Journal devoted to the Interests, Practice, and Progress of Aerial Locomotion and Transport", it is the world's oldes ...

12–18 April 2005 Romavia set up an Aircraft Maintenance Organization, for the benefit of their own fleet and for other customers. The fleet consisted, among other models, of two Romanian-built BAC (Rombac) 1-11 (YR-BRE and the last worldwide build, YR-BRI with stage III Rolls-Royce engines). As of August 2014, the company is bankrupt.

Fleet

Romavia Bucuresti Rombac 1-11-561RC One-Eleven Bidini-1

Over the years, Romavia operated the following aircraft types:

Incidents and accidents

*On 10 January 1991, a

Boeing 707-300 The Boeing 707 is an American, long-range, Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body airliner, the first jetliner developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Developed from the Boeing 367-80 prototype first flown in 1954, the initial first ...

( registered YR-ABD) was damaged beyond repair during a crash landing at

Bucharest Otopeni Airport Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

. The aircraft had been on a crew training flight for soon-to-be-launched Romavia, when it hit the runway with its left wing, resulting in a fire. There were no casualties amongst the 13 persons on board.Romavia 1991 crash landing at the Aviation Safety Network
/ref> *On 13 December 1995, Banat Air Flight 166, an

Antonov An-24 The Antonov An-24 (Russian/Ukrainian: Антонов Ан-24) (NATO reporting name: Coke) is a 44-seat twin turboprop transport/passenger aircraft designed in 1957 in the Soviet Union by the Antonov Design Bureau and manufactured by Kyiv, Irku ...

(registered YR-AMR) chartered from Romavia, crashed shortly after take-off from

Verona Airport Verona Villafranca Airport , also known as Valerio Catullo Airport or ''Villafranca Airport'', is located southwest of Verona, Italy. The airport is situated next to the junction of A4 Milan-Venice and A22 Modena-Brenner motorways. It serves ...

, killing all 41 passengers and 8 crew members on board. The accident most probably happened because of the aircraft having been overloaded and improperly de-iced.

References

External links

Official website
{{Airlines of Romania Defunct airlines of Romania Airlines established in 1990 Airlines disestablished in 2014 2010 disestablishments in Romania Romanian companies established in 1990