Africa
Faults found on Comoros crash plane in 2007
Relatives of passengers wait outside the arrival lounge at Sanaa International Airport June 30, 2009. An Airbus A310-300 from Yemen with 153 people on board, including 66 French nationals, crashed into choppy seas as it tried to land in bad weather on the Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros on Tuesday, officials said. REUTERS
Posted Tuesday, June 30 2009 at 13:00
PARIS (Reuters)
Faults were detected on the Yemenia A310-300 plane that crashed near Comoros on Tuesday during inspections in France in 2007, and the airline was under scrutiny there, French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said.
"The A310 in question was inspected in 2007 by the DGAC (French transport authorities) and they noticed a certain number of faults. Since then the plane had not returned to France," he told the I-tele television channel.
"The company was not on the black list but was subject to stricter checks on our part, and was due to be interviewed shortly by the European Union's safety committee."
Earlier he had said on Europe 1 radio that the plane was not at fault in the crash.
RSS