Safety complaint before crash: authorities
HAVANA: The Mexican charter company whose 39yearold plane crashed in Havana, killing 110 people, had been the subject of serious complaints about its crews’ performance over the past decade, authorities say.
Mexico’s Government saidyesterday its National Civil Aviation Authority would carry out an audit of Damojh airlines to see if its ‘‘current operating conditions continue meeting regulations’’ and to help collect information for the investigation into Saturday’s crash in Cuba.
The Boeing 737 was barred from Guyanese airspace last year after authorities discovered its crew had been allowing dangerous overloading of luggage on flights to Cuba, Guyanese civil aviation director Captain Egbert Field said yesterday.
The plane and crew were being rented from Mexico Citybased Damojh by EasySky, a Hondurasbased lowcost airline.
Cuba’s national carrier, Cubana de Aviacion, was also renting the plane and crew in a similar arrangement known as a ‘‘wet lease’’ before the aircraft veered on taking off for the eastern Cuban city of Holguin and crashed into a field just after 4am Saturday New Zealand time, according to Mexican aviation authorities.
A Damojh employee in Mexico City declined to comment.
Mexican authorities said Damojh had permits needed to lease its aircraft and had passed a November 2017 verification of its maintenance programme. They announced a new audit yesterday.
Cuban Transportation Minister Adel Yzquierdo Rodriguez told reporters Cubana had been renting the plane for less than a month under an arrangement in which the Mexican company was responsible for maintenance.
Yzquierdo also said the jet’s ‘‘black box’’ voice recorder had been recovered and that Cuban officials had granted a United States request for investigators from Boeing to travel to the island. — AP