Japan's First Flying Receives Safety Improvement Recommendation After Flying DHC-6-400 With Known Weather Radar Defect
Why It MattersThe case shows regulators treating a deferred known defect as a maintenance-control and safety-management failure, so small regional operators face scrutiny over how snags are recorded, released and cleared before each flight.
What happened
Japan's Osaka Regional Civil Aviation Bureau has issued a safety improvement recommendation to Daiichi Aviation, which operates as First Flying (Okinawa Naha). The recommendation concerns its DHC-6-400 JA201D (msn 915), which was operated with a known weather radar defect on July 12-13, 2026.
The malfunction was identified before an Okinawa Naha-Ishigaki ferry flight. The required maintenance and pre-departure checks were not carried out before that flight.
The aircraft then operated an Ishigaki-Hateruma roundtrip with the defect unresolved. The regulator also issued a warning to the company's safety management side.
Industry impact & what to watch
A recommendation paired with a warning on safety management points to a process failure, not only a faulty piece of equipment. Weather radar matters most for turboprop operators flying island-hopping sectors where convective weather can build quickly, and the defect here was known before the aircraft left.
For small regional operators, the practical lesson is that the gap between identifying a defect and clearing it before the next departure is where regulators look. Defect recording, deferral authority and pre-departure checks have to line up, or a single aircraft can fly several sectors in a non-compliant state.
The next point to follow is how First Flying responds to the recommendation and the warning, and whether the bureau publishes any follow-up on corrective action.
