Yemeni Crash Boosts Scrutiny of Air Safety in Emerg Nations

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The fatal crash of a Yemeni Airbus jet into the Indian Ocean is heightening scrutiny of the safety standards of developing nations and their airlines.

The European Union said it will assess whether to add Yemen to a list of countries with unsafe airlines that includes Swaziland and Indonesia, following the accident yesterday involving a Yemenia Airways Inc. Airbus SAS A310 carrying 153 people. A teenage girl was the only survivor found in initial rescue operations.

France has had the carrier under “strict surveillance” since an inspection of the A310 in 2007 found unspecified faults. Airlines on the EU’s banned list include Kazakhstan’s Air Company Kokshetau and Ukraine’s Motor Sich Airlines, both added in April.

“Some of these airlines are essentially operating without any type of oversight, and travelers need to be aware,” Jim Hall, former chairman of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, said in an interview. “You don’t have any way of knowing what type of oversight or supervision you’re getting on some of these airlines. With some of them, it’s very minimal.”

While airlines in developing nations are considered the most risky by regulators, some of the deadliest crashes happen with first-world carriers. The Air France crash on June 1 that killed 228 people involved a larger Airbus model, an A330-200.

Indonesia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Swaziland are among more than 20 countries that don’t meet the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s safety standards. Those countries also have airlines on the EU’s banned list, created in 2006 with more than 90 carriers, mostly from Africa.

Bangladesh to Uruguay

The EU splits its ban into three groups: all carriers in certain countries, specific carriers in some nations, or parts of fleets of certain airlines. The ban covers carriers from nations including Angola, Liberia and Rwanda.

The FAA bans by country. Nations the agency says aren’t meeting minimum standards include Bangladesh, Belize, Croatia, Gambia, Ghana, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Kiribati, Nauru, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Philippines and Uruguay.

Global air safety standards are set by the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization. The group audits how well-equipped countries are to establish airworthiness of planes and conduct oversight, said Denis Chagnon, a spokesman. It doesn’t enforce or implement actual procedures, he said.

“ICAO sets the standards, and the states must implement them,” Chagnon said. “It’s not our job to tell states what to do.”

Assessing Safety

Yemenia had met safety program standards of the International Air Transport Association trade group and was added to its registry in May 2007, said Steve Lott, a spokesman for the Montreal-based organization. A renewal audit of the carrier’s operational management occurred in February 2008, and the carrier is due for its next audit in 2010, Lott said.

Airline crashes in 2004 and 2005 that killed hundreds of Europeans prompted the EU to seek a uniform approach to airline safety through a common blacklist. The list is updated four times a year and is based on deficiencies found during checks at airports, antiquated aircraft and shortcomings spotted by non-EU airline regulators.

Regulators in developing nations “tend to be under- supported by the governments, therefore there’s nobody enforcing the standards,” William Voss, chief executive officer of the nonprofit Flight Safety Foundation, told reporters in Washington.

EU Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani said the group will assess the safety level of Yemenia and propose a worldwide blacklist for some airlines. Yemenia isn’t on the EU’s current list. The next update of the list is due in about two weeks.

“To reinforce security around the world, we have to have a global blacklist,” Tajani told reporters in Brussels.

One Survivor

The A310 jet, built in 1990 and no longer produced, plunged into the sea near the Comoros Islands, Yemenia officials said. Half the passengers were from France.

The airline said the cause of the accident was “purely weather,” with winds gusting as strong as 113 kilometers (71 miles) per hour, and that they’ve never had problems with the plane.

Yemen isn’t on the FAA’s lists, probably because there are no flights between the U.S. and the nation, Alison Duquette, an FAA spokeswoman, said.

The FAA rates a country as not meeting minimum standards should it lack laws, technical expertise, recordkeeping and resources to ensure adequate safety oversight, according to the agency’s Web site. The agency focuses on countries, not specific carriers.

Carriers in countries that receive the low rating are allowed to keep serving the U.S., though under heightened federal surveillance, according to the FAA. If carriers do not yet have service to the U.S. at the time they receive the rating, they may not begin the flights.

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