Yemen Plane With 153 People Crashes; Child Survives (Update1)
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By Henry Meyer and Massoud A. Derhally
June 30 (Bloomberg) -- A Yemeni Airbus that crashed into the Indian Ocean with 153 people aboard was barred from flying in France and the carrier, Yemenia, now faces a safety assessment by the European Union. A 5-year-old child is the only survivor found so far.
The Airbus SAS A310 was 15 minutes from landing in the Comoros Islands’ capital, Moroni, when it plunged into the sea today, Taha al-Ashwal, a Yemenia official, said by telephone from Yemen’s capital, Sana’a. The airline said the crash took place during stormy weather. Rescue teams who found the child are continuing the search for the other 141 passengers and 11 crew members, the Comoros presidency said on its Web site.
The passengers, most of them Comorians, began their journey from Paris to Sana’a on a Yemenia Airbus A330 that had a stopover in Marseille. They were transferred to the A310 for the final leg of the flight from Sana’a to the Comoros. The A310 that crashed, built in 1990, had been barred from use in France after a 2007 French inspection, the French government said.
The crash near the Comoros is the second involving an Airbus in a month. An Air France Airbus A330-200 en route to Paris from Rio de Janeiro crashed into the Atlantic June 1, killing all 228 people on board.
Blacklist Proposed
EU authorities, who maintain a list of banned carriers, will assess the safety level of Yemenia and also propose a worldwide blacklist for some airlines, EU Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani said. The next update of the EU blacklist is due in 10 to 15 days.
“To reinforce security around the world, we have to have a global blacklist,” Tajani told reporters in Brussels today, adding that the Airbus that left France was a “good aircraft.”
Yemen’s national carrier said the plane that came down in the waters off southeastern Africa was safe to fly.
“We never had problems with the plane. It was purely weather,” Yemenia Chairman Abdulkalek Saleh Al-Kadi said in a telephone interview from Sana’a.
Winds were gusting as high as 113 kilometers (71 miles) per hour and the sea was rough, Agence France-Presse cited an aviation official as saying. Officials lost contact with the aircraft at about 1 a.m. local time, said Yemenia’s al-Ashwal.
Wreckage was spotted off the coast of the archipelago and some bodies were seen floating about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from Moroni, AFP reported, citing senior aviation official Mohammad Abdel Kader.
French National
Most of the passengers were of Comorian origin from France, the airline said. Sixty-six French nationals were on the flight, the French Foreign Ministry said. About 200,000 Comorians live in France, according to the French government.
“The Comoros are a poor and small country that can’t afford to have its own airline, so it’s dependent on whatever airlines fly in the Indian Ocean,” Stephane Salors, the country’s consul general in Marseille, where a large Comorian community lives, said on France’s i-tele channel.
“There have been many complaints over the years about Yemenia,” he said, adding that the A310 was an “old generation plane” that had other accidents in the past.
French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said that the inspection of the crashed A310 in 2007 noted “a certain number of faults,” without elaborating on the problems. Yemenia since that time had been “under strict surveillance,” he said in an interview with i-tele.
Rules on Transfers
Bussereau later told the parliament in Paris that rules are needed to ensure that an airline whose fleet includes planes banned from flying in Europe isn’t allowed to transfer passengers from a European flight to a banned aircraft.
Yemenia’s deputy managing director, Ali Sumairi, said the French findings were “minor” and had been corrected. “The aircraft was technically sound. The airplane departed without any technical problems,” he said in an interview with France 24 television.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy dispatched airplanes and ships from Reunion Island to help with the search. In a statement today, he expressed his profound shock and assigned Transport Minister Bussereau to monitor the situation.
France today sent a military plane with a medical team and deep sea divers aboard. Tomorrow, a naval patrol boat and a helicopter carrier will be on the scene, the Defense Ministry said.
Yemenia sent a team to the Comoros Islands to investigate the crash, said the company’s chairman. The BEA, the French Aviation Accidents Bureau, said in a statement that it’s sending investigators accompanied by Airbus specialists to Moroni.
Rules Out Link
The French minister ruled out any link between the crashes of Yemenia’s A310 and Air France’s A330.
“It would be as if there were two accidents with Clios and we withdrew all Clios from the road,” Bussereau said in remarks televised from Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris, referring to the model from carmaker Renault SA.
Yemenia runs four A310-300 that are leased, according to the Arab Air Carriers Organization. The oldest plane was built in 1990 and the newest in 1997. The airline, which is 49 percent owned by Saudi Arabian Airlines, also operates leased Airbus A330-200 and Boeing 737-800 aircraft.
Airbus SAS said the aircraft in the Yemenia crash was an A310-300 that left its production line in 1990. The plane had been operated by Yemenia since 1999, the planemaker, based in Toulouse, France, said in an e-mailed statement.
Yemen is the poorest Arab nation, with about 40 percent of the population living on less than $2 a day, according to the U.K. Department for International Development.
The Comoros Islands are divided into an independent nation, the Union of the Comoros, and the island of Mayotte, a French territory claimed by the Union of the Comoros.
To contact the reporters on this story: Henry Meyer in Dubai at [email protected]; Massoud A. Derhally in Amman, Jordan, at [email protected].
Last Updated: June 30, 2009 10:51 EDT
Share | Email | Print | A A A
By Henry Meyer and Massoud A. Derhally
June 30 (Bloomberg) -- A Yemeni Airbus that crashed into the Indian Ocean with 153 people aboard was barred from flying in France and the carrier, Yemenia, now faces a safety assessment by the European Union. A 5-year-old child is the only survivor found so far.
The Airbus SAS A310 was 15 minutes from landing in the Comoros Islands’ capital, Moroni, when it plunged into the sea today, Taha al-Ashwal, a Yemenia official, said by telephone from Yemen’s capital, Sana’a. The airline said the crash took place during stormy weather. Rescue teams who found the child are continuing the search for the other 141 passengers and 11 crew members, the Comoros presidency said on its Web site.
The passengers, most of them Comorians, began their journey from Paris to Sana’a on a Yemenia Airbus A330 that had a stopover in Marseille. They were transferred to the A310 for the final leg of the flight from Sana’a to the Comoros. The A310 that crashed, built in 1990, had been barred from use in France after a 2007 French inspection, the French government said.
The crash near the Comoros is the second involving an Airbus in a month. An Air France Airbus A330-200 en route to Paris from Rio de Janeiro crashed into the Atlantic June 1, killing all 228 people on board.
Blacklist Proposed
EU authorities, who maintain a list of banned carriers, will assess the safety level of Yemenia and also propose a worldwide blacklist for some airlines, EU Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani said. The next update of the EU blacklist is due in 10 to 15 days.
“To reinforce security around the world, we have to have a global blacklist,” Tajani told reporters in Brussels today, adding that the Airbus that left France was a “good aircraft.”
Yemen’s national carrier said the plane that came down in the waters off southeastern Africa was safe to fly.
“We never had problems with the plane. It was purely weather,” Yemenia Chairman Abdulkalek Saleh Al-Kadi said in a telephone interview from Sana’a.
Winds were gusting as high as 113 kilometers (71 miles) per hour and the sea was rough, Agence France-Presse cited an aviation official as saying. Officials lost contact with the aircraft at about 1 a.m. local time, said Yemenia’s al-Ashwal.
Wreckage was spotted off the coast of the archipelago and some bodies were seen floating about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from Moroni, AFP reported, citing senior aviation official Mohammad Abdel Kader.
French National
Most of the passengers were of Comorian origin from France, the airline said. Sixty-six French nationals were on the flight, the French Foreign Ministry said. About 200,000 Comorians live in France, according to the French government.
“The Comoros are a poor and small country that can’t afford to have its own airline, so it’s dependent on whatever airlines fly in the Indian Ocean,” Stephane Salors, the country’s consul general in Marseille, where a large Comorian community lives, said on France’s i-tele channel.
“There have been many complaints over the years about Yemenia,” he said, adding that the A310 was an “old generation plane” that had other accidents in the past.
French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said that the inspection of the crashed A310 in 2007 noted “a certain number of faults,” without elaborating on the problems. Yemenia since that time had been “under strict surveillance,” he said in an interview with i-tele.
Rules on Transfers
Bussereau later told the parliament in Paris that rules are needed to ensure that an airline whose fleet includes planes banned from flying in Europe isn’t allowed to transfer passengers from a European flight to a banned aircraft.
Yemenia’s deputy managing director, Ali Sumairi, said the French findings were “minor” and had been corrected. “The aircraft was technically sound. The airplane departed without any technical problems,” he said in an interview with France 24 television.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy dispatched airplanes and ships from Reunion Island to help with the search. In a statement today, he expressed his profound shock and assigned Transport Minister Bussereau to monitor the situation.
France today sent a military plane with a medical team and deep sea divers aboard. Tomorrow, a naval patrol boat and a helicopter carrier will be on the scene, the Defense Ministry said.
Yemenia sent a team to the Comoros Islands to investigate the crash, said the company’s chairman. The BEA, the French Aviation Accidents Bureau, said in a statement that it’s sending investigators accompanied by Airbus specialists to Moroni.
Rules Out Link
The French minister ruled out any link between the crashes of Yemenia’s A310 and Air France’s A330.
“It would be as if there were two accidents with Clios and we withdrew all Clios from the road,” Bussereau said in remarks televised from Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris, referring to the model from carmaker Renault SA.
Yemenia runs four A310-300 that are leased, according to the Arab Air Carriers Organization. The oldest plane was built in 1990 and the newest in 1997. The airline, which is 49 percent owned by Saudi Arabian Airlines, also operates leased Airbus A330-200 and Boeing 737-800 aircraft.
Airbus SAS said the aircraft in the Yemenia crash was an A310-300 that left its production line in 1990. The plane had been operated by Yemenia since 1999, the planemaker, based in Toulouse, France, said in an e-mailed statement.
Yemen is the poorest Arab nation, with about 40 percent of the population living on less than $2 a day, according to the U.K. Department for International Development.
The Comoros Islands are divided into an independent nation, the Union of the Comoros, and the island of Mayotte, a French territory claimed by the Union of the Comoros.
To contact the reporters on this story: Henry Meyer in Dubai at [email protected]; Massoud A. Derhally in Amman, Jordan, at [email protected].
Last Updated: June 30, 2009 10:51 EDT
