Services branded as Yanda Airlines commenced in 1988 as a milk run between Scone and Sydney with intermediate stops in Singleton and Maitland utilising a 9-seat Piper PA-31 Chieftain.
The company's Air operator's certificate was controversially suspended by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority on 5 January 2001, following an incident after takeoff at Gunnedah.
CASA cited a 'history of operational problems' since 1997 and this incident as reasons for the grounding, despite acknowledging satisfactory compliance by the company regarding the previous safety issues.
CASA maintains their action in grounding the airline was justified in the interest of public safety, and that the nature of the incident if mis-handled could have caused the aircraft to crash.
[5] The subsequent report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau released in November 2001 attributed the incident to pilot error and uncovered no systematic problems with the airlines' training or maintenance routines.