Bad weather blamed for Yemen Airways crash
Relatives of passengers react at Marseille Airport
Bad weather is believed to have been the main cause of the crash today of an Airbus A310 plane in the Indian Ocean.
The only survivor so far of the accident, involving a Yemenia Yemen Airways plane, with 142 passengers and 11 crew aboard, is a five-year-old child.
French transport authorities raised safety concerns about this individual aircraft following checks in 2007.
The accident is the second to involve an Airbus plane in the last four weeks and follows the June 1 crash in the Atlantic of a Rio to Paris Air France Airbus A330 with the loss of 228 lives, including three Irish nationals.
Today’s accident involved a flight from Sana’a in Yemen to Moroni in the Comoros Islands.
“It’s likely that we will find that this accident was primarily weather-related,” said Chris Yates, aviation analyst for publishing company IHS Jane’s.
“It is believed weather conditions in the area and across the approach path are thought to have been rough with strong winds.
“It’s also been confirmed that the aircraft aborted an initial landing and was making a second approach to the Moroni airport.”
Mr Yates said that investigators were expected to be able to find the “black box” flight data recorders from the A310, unlike the situation with the A330 in the Atlantic where the black boxes are unlikely ever to be located.
Mr Yates went on: “There’s really no link between these two accidents.”
The wings of Airbus planes are made in the UK.
More than 60 French nationals were on the Airbus A310. French President Nicolas Sarkozy “expressed his deep emotion” about the accident and asked the French military to help in the rescue operation, particularly from the French islands of Mayotte and Reunion.
Airbus said today that the A310 went into service 19 years ago and had accumulated 51,900 flight hours. It has been operated by Yemen Airways since 1999.
The A310-300 is a twin-engine wide-bodied jet that can seat up to 220 passengers.
There are 214 A310s in service worldwide with 41 operators.
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