Brussels, 01/07/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 30 June, European Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani met Executive Director of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) Patrick Goudou, for talks on the crash of a Yemenia Yemen Airways flight off the Comoros coast (see EUROPE 9932), after the European Air Safety Committee reported serious failings by the company on aircraft maintenance. Further to the measures announced the previous day (creation, with the prior agreement of the International Civil Aviation Organisation - ICAO - and the International Air Carriers Association, of a global blacklist of airlines banned from flying), the European Commission has called on representatives of the Yemeni company to appear before the Air Safety Committee on Thursday 2 July.
In a letter sent on Tuesday, the Commission also called on the company to provide it with all the available information on the accident before 10 July. The company was also asked to inform EU experts of corrective action taken in the maintenance of the aeroplane, which, according to the latest safety assessment, presented some deficiencies in this area. These assessments are on the basis of inspections of aircraft flying to the EU: the last time inspection information was sent to the Commission was October 2008. The company was not on the EU blacklist and, it says, operated flights in and out of Madrid, London, Frankfurt, Milan and Paris. The Commission has yet to receive a reply from the company.
The Commission has also asked EASA to speed up work on air safety implementing rules for third country operators. These rules will require third country operators flying within or to the EU to have more comprehensive safety certificates. According to an Agency spokesman, the draft regulation is about to be finalised, but thereafter there has to follow the whole legislative process. The daily Les Echos says that the Yemeni company has been criticised in at least one ICAO report - in 2004. This report highlighted the air carrier's unsuitability, lack of information and means, but the recommendations, in line with ICAO rules, were not binding. In 2007, French authorities banned two of the company's aeroplanes registered in France from flying, suspending their certificate of airworthiness. (A.By./transl.rt)