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• Friday, July 10, 2009 04:06 AM

  Another query

  "The Yemenia A310 carried a French registration. Contrary to some reports, the airline had not been banned from operation into the European Union, though it was subject to special scrutiny by European safety officials."

  European reports were not that the airline had been banned (it is on the watch list) but that the aircraft was prohibited from passenger service in the EU because it had failed an inspection at a French airport in ways that the owner saw as too expensive to repair. Thus the passengers in this crash had no flown on this specific A310 from France, but rather on an A330 and then changed aircraft to fly on to the Comoros. The condition of Air Yemen's aircraft used to service the Comoros islands has been the subject of considerable reporting - although at least the main UK newspapers seem to suggest that this probably did not cause the crash, but more likely some sort of pilot error.

  The black list does exclude in their entirety aircraft where safety is regulated by certain countries, usually based on a problem with the regulating agency or standards of endemic corruption. Indonesia is a bit of a surprise (although god knows the country's courts are breathtakingly corrupt.) Notably, a number of the airlines on the blacklist have certain specified aircraft approved, presumably because they have passed inspections.

  —MacK.. Read MacK..'s other letters
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