Spring Break
Yemeni plane with 153 crashes off Comoros Islands
AHMED AL-HAJ Associated Press Writers TOM MALITI Associated Press Writers
Issue date: 6/19/09 Section: AP NEWS
French aviation inspectors found a "number of faults" during a 2007 inspection of the plane that went down, French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said on i-Tele television Tuesday.
In Brussels, EU Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani said the airline had previously met EU safety checks and was not on the bloc's blacklist. But he said a full investigation was now being started amid questions why passengers were put on another jet in the Yemeni capital of San'a.
An Airbus statement said the plane that crashed went into service 19 years ago, in 1990, and had accumulated 51,900 flight hours. It has been operated by Yemenia since 1999. Airbus said it was sending a team of specialists to the Comoros.
The A310-300 is a twin-engine widebody jet that can seat up to 220 passengers. There are 214 A310s in service worldwide with 41 operators.
A crisis center was set up at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Many passengers were from the French city of Marseille, home to around 80,000 immigrant Comorans, more even than Comoros' capital of Moroni.
Some French Comorans insisted that their earlier warnings about the airline's safety weren't heeded by authorities.
Stephane Salord, the Comoros' honorary consul in Marseille, called Yemenia's aircraft "flying cattle trucks."
"This A310 is a plane that has posed problems for a long time, it is absolutely inadmissible that this airline Yemenia played with the lives of its passengers this way," he said.
"Some people stand the whole way to Moroni," said Mohamed Ali, a Comoran who went to Yemenia's headquarters in Paris to try to get more information.
Thoue Djoumbe, a 28-year-old woman who lives in the French town of Fontainebleau, said she and others had complained about the airline for years.
"It's a lottery when you travel to Comoros," said Djoumbe. "We've organized boycotts, we've told the Comoran community not to fly on Yemenia airways because they make a lot of money off of us and meanwhile the conditions on the planes are disastrous."
In Brussels, EU Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani said the airline had previously met EU safety checks and was not on the bloc's blacklist. But he said a full investigation was now being started amid questions why passengers were put on another jet in the Yemeni capital of San'a.
An Airbus statement said the plane that crashed went into service 19 years ago, in 1990, and had accumulated 51,900 flight hours. It has been operated by Yemenia since 1999. Airbus said it was sending a team of specialists to the Comoros.
The A310-300 is a twin-engine widebody jet that can seat up to 220 passengers. There are 214 A310s in service worldwide with 41 operators.
A crisis center was set up at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Many passengers were from the French city of Marseille, home to around 80,000 immigrant Comorans, more even than Comoros' capital of Moroni.
Some French Comorans insisted that their earlier warnings about the airline's safety weren't heeded by authorities.
Stephane Salord, the Comoros' honorary consul in Marseille, called Yemenia's aircraft "flying cattle trucks."
"This A310 is a plane that has posed problems for a long time, it is absolutely inadmissible that this airline Yemenia played with the lives of its passengers this way," he said.
"Some people stand the whole way to Moroni," said Mohamed Ali, a Comoran who went to Yemenia's headquarters in Paris to try to get more information.
Thoue Djoumbe, a 28-year-old woman who lives in the French town of Fontainebleau, said she and others had complained about the airline for years.
"It's a lottery when you travel to Comoros," said Djoumbe. "We've organized boycotts, we've told the Comoran community not to fly on Yemenia airways because they make a lot of money off of us and meanwhile the conditions on the planes are disastrous."
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