Gulf | Yemen
Minister: France had banned Yemenia crash plane in 2007
France banned the Yemenia A310-300 Airbus that crashed near Comoros on Tuesday from French soil after faults were found in a test in 2007, Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said.
- Reuters
- Published: 22:51 June 30, 2009
Paris: France banned the Yemenia A310-300 Airbus that crashed near Comoros on Tuesday from French soil after faults were found in a test in 2007, Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said.
He said he was investigating whether picking up passengers in France in one plane and then transferring them to a possibly less safe one in another location was allowable.
"A few years ago we excluded this plane from national soil because we considered that it had a number of irregularities," Bussereau told parliament.
"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."
Faults were detected in France in 2007 on the A310.
Yemen's transport minister said the aircraft had undergone a thorough inspection in May under Airbus supervision.
"It was a comprehensive inspection carried out in Yemen ... with experts from Airbus," Khalid Ebrahim Al Wazeer told Reuters by telephone from Sana'a.
Many of the passengers began their journey in Paris or Marseille aboard a different Yemenia plane, an A330. They switched to the A310 in Sanaa.
Bussereau had said in an early morning radio interview that the plane was not at fault in the crash.
A European Commission official said the 2007 examination of the A310 had sparked an inquiry into Yemenia's safety record.
And the European Aviation Safety Agency said the EU had suspended permission for Yemenia to service EU-registered planes last February after it failed a set of audit inspections.
Although Yemenia operated the A310, it was owned by International Lease Finance Corp. It was registered in Yemen.
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