Two fatal flights in 16 months for Sudan Airways

Loveday Morris and Daniel Bardsley

• Last Updated: October 22. 2009 3:29PM UAE / October 22. 2009 11:29AM GMT

The crash at Sharjah International Airport yesterday is the second fatal accident involving a Sudan Airways plane in just over a year, and the sixth in the past 10 years.

In June last year, the airline’s license was temporarily revoked and its flights grounded after 30 people were killed when a plane travelling from Amman burst into flames upon touching down in Khartoum.

The Sudanese Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) ordered the national carrier to ground its flights for a month to make urgent safety improvements, but said the sanctions were unrelated to the crash.

An internal audit reportedly found the airline to be in violation of administrative and technical standards. The head of the CAA said the company needed to stop its “non-compliance with international standards”.

Sudan Airways appealed the decision and was allowed to resume flights just hours later, after promising to address the concerns.

The airline said at the time it would assess the frequency of flights and the age of its planes. It also said it would appoint an independent expert to monitor its services.

Yesterday’s crash was the latest of six incidents in the past decade involving the 60-year-old airline.

In the most serious accident, 116 people where killed when one of its Boeing 737s crashed in Port Sudan shortly after take-off in 2003.

Adam Moussa, an official for the airline, declined to comment yesterday about its safety record.

The airline leased the Boeing 707 cargo aircraft that crashed yesterday from Azza Transport, which was hit with sanctions by the US government in 2007 after being accused of “transferring small arms, ammunition and artillery to Sudanese government forces and Janjaweed militia in Darfur”.

The decision meant it was barred from doing business with American citizens or companies, and that the US would freeze its assets when it could.

Officials from Azza Transport also declined to comment on the crash yesterday.

Sudan Airways has passed the International Air Transportation Authority’s safety audit, but its certification does not cover all its operations, including Boeing 707 flights, as they do not meet all standards, according to the IATA.

The Sharjah crash is the airline’s second involving a Boeing 707.

In September 1982, a plane carrying 11 people destined for Khartoum landed in the Nile River, almost five kilometres short of the runway.

Richard Maslen, deputy editor of Airliner World magazine, said it was inevitable that, as an older design, the 707 would suffer more crashes than other models.

“Aviation safety has improved significantly in each decade, and you would come to expect there would be more incidents in older-generation airliners,” he said.

However, he said there were stringent rules governing the life of individual planes, so it was not inherently unsafe to fly planes several decades old.

“International aviation safety is so stringent that aircraft can continue to fly for a long period of time,” he said.

“Just because it’s 30 or 40 years old, I wouldn’t say it’s unsafe. That would be completely wrong.”

Mr Maslen noted that certain regions suffered more air crashes than others.

“If you check the aviation safety statistics, there are areas of the world with higher accident rates Africa and the Middle East is one, the Commonwealth of Independent States [is another],” he said.

There have been 12 incidents with Boeing 707s in which more than 100 people have been killed. More than 150 of the planes have been lost in total, although many incidents did not result in deaths.

The worst single incident involved a chartered 707 that crashed near Agadir, Morocco in August 1975, killing 188 people.

Other major incidents include the crash of a Jordanian 707 at Kano Airport in Nigeria in January 1973, resulting in 176 deaths.

Also, 115 people died when a Korean Air 707 exploded over the Andaman Sea in November 1987 on a flight from Abu Dhabi to Bangkok. A bomb had been placed on board earlier by North Korean agents in Baghdad.

Yesterday’s crash was the fifth major incident at Sharjah International Airport.

In January, the prop of a British Gulf International Airlines Antanov plane struck the runway after the landing gear failed. In 2004, an Iranian Kish Airlines plane plunged into the ground near the airport, killing 43 people.

The most deadly incident was in 1997 when a Tajikistan Airlines plane broke up and caught fire upon landing, killing 85 people. The probable cause was “stress, slight turbulence and non-adherence to operating procedures”, according to a report.

lmorris@thenational.ae

dbardsley@thenational.ae