Egyptian First Lady Suzanne Mubarak laid a wreath in mourning of the 148 people lost to a plane crash off the shores of Sharm el-Sheikh on 3 January, 2004. 133 aboard were French tourists; the others included nationals from Morocco and Japan, as well as the Egyptian crew. [AFP Photo by Hussein Molla] |
An Unanswered Question The entire world was still reeling from the 26 December 2003 earthquake that claimed more than 30,000 lives in the ancient Iranian city of Bam when, eight days later, another grievous headline appeared. It was bad enough that, on the 3rd of January, a chartered Boeing 737 -- one of two operated by the Flash Tour Group of Egypt -- crashed into the Red Sea shortly upon takeoff from the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, killing all 148 people aboard. What made the catastrophe even more tragic was the subsequent revelation that, since October of 2002, the Swiss Office of Civil Aviation had banned Flash to fly over Swiss airspace, due to poor aircraft maintenance. According to the Swiss statement, as reported by the BBC on 5 January, "in the area of landing gear, engines and the plane's steering system, obvious faulty maintenance was discovered" in both of the Egyptian operator's two 737's. Following the Swiss ban, Flash nevertheless passed inspections in France, Norway and Poland, as recently as in October of 2003. The absurdity of it all, the implication that the disaster over the Red Sea might have been a result of negligence or incompetence, did not end there. |
It is reported that there are at least five other airlines which are presently deemed unsafe by one European aviation authority or another -- four more are banned by Switzerland, one by Belgium and the Netherlands. However, there is yet to be any effort to make this blackened list known to the greater public, beyond the purview of the European Civil Aviation Conference.
Why must innocent travelers die before others can be better informed?
-- CW, 6 January 2004
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