France ‘banned Yemen crash plane’…

BBC NEWS

30/06/09

A Yemeni airline which crashed into the Indian Ocean was banned from France because

of “irregularities”, France’s transport minister has said.

Dominique Bussereau told parliament of ongoing concerns about the safety record of the Yemenia Airbus 310.

One young person is said to have been rescued from the ocean, the only known survivor of the 153 people on board.

The plane was heading from Yemen to the Comoros islands, but many on board began their journey in France.

Most had flown on a different Yemenia aircraft from Paris or Marseille before boarding flight IY626 in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen.

The crash was the second involving an Airbus aircraft in recent weeks. On 1 June an Air France Airbus 330 travelling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris plunged into the Atlantic, killing all 228 people on board.

That tragedy also involved large numbers of French citizens.

‘Never again’

In Paris, Mr Bussereau told legislators that the Yemenia Airbus 310 which crashed was not permitted to fly into France, and raised concerns about the transfer of passengers from a plane classed as safe to one which crashed into the ocean.

See a map of the plane’s route

“A few years ago, we banned this plane from national territory because we believed it presented a certain number of irregularities in its technical equipment,” Mr Bussereau told parliament.

FLIGHT IY626 Airbus A310-300 aircraft, built in 1990 153 people on board, including 66 French nationals Flight originated in Paris, using modern Airbus A330-200 Stopped in Marseille before flying to Sanaa Passengers moved to A310-300 Stopover in Djibouti Comorans ‘warned of flight safety’ ‘We are praying for a miracle’ In pictures: Yemeni plane crash Timeline of Flight IY626

“The question we are asking… is whether you can collect people in a normal way on French territory and then put them in a plane that does not ensure their security. We do not want this to happen again.”

However, a spokesman for the airline said poor weather was more likely to have been a factor in the crash than the condition of the plane.

Yemeni Transport Minister Khaled Ibrahim al-Wazeer also told Reuters that the plane had recently undergone a thorough inspection overseen by Airbus and conformed to international standards.

The crash prompted the European Union to highlight its own concerns about Yemenia’s safety record, proposing a world blacklist of those carriers deemed unsafe.

The EU already has its own list, and its transport commissioner, Antonio Tajani, said such a list would be a “safety guarantee for all”.

Another EU official told Reuters news agency there were concerns about the airline’s “incomplete reporting procedure and incomplete follow-up” following 2007 tests on the aircraft that crashed, but that its record was improving.

Anger and grief

Reports say the plane was due in the Comoros capital Moroni at about 0230 (2230GMT on Monday). Most of the passengers had travelled to Sanaa from Paris or Marseille on a different aircraft.

The flight on to Moroni, on the island of Njazidja (Grande Comore), was also thought to have made a stop in Djibouti.

There were more than 150 people on board, including three babies and 11 crew. Some 66 of the passengers were French, although many are thought to have dual French-Comoran citizenship.