Transport / Air
Safety

Aviation industry shaken as another plane crashes / May 2016

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Aviation industry shaken as another plane crashes

Two plane crashes within hours of each other have left the aviation industry shaken this week.

Two plane crashes within hours of each other have left the aviation industry shaken this week, with investigators frantically seeking answers in both incidents.

EgyptAir Flight 804, flying from Paris to Cairo, disappeared soon after crossing into Egyptian airspace over the Mediterranean Thursday morning. Later that day, French and Egyptian officials located floating wreckage of the A320 and confirmed that all 56 passengers and 10 crew members were believed dead.

Just hours earlier, an Antonov An-12 cargo plane had crashed shortly after take-off from Dwyer Airport in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, killing seven of the nine crew members on board. The four-engine, turbo-prop An-12 had flown in from Bagram Air Force Base and was headed to Mary International Airport in Turkmenistan for refuelling.

The two survivors are reported to be technicians from Ukraine; the deceased crew members are believed to include five Azerbaijanis, one Ukrainian and one Uzbek, the captain of the aircraft.

No cargo was aboard the aircraft, owned by Silkway Airways and no cause has yet been determined from the early investigation.

Over the weekend French officials announced that the Airbus being operated for EgyptAir Flight 804 had sent smoke alarm signals to the ground in the minutes before it disappeared from radar, leading some to speculate that the plane was brought down by an act of terrorism.

Last November, Russian investigators confirmed that a homemade bomb brought down a Metrojet airliner in October 2015 over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula shortly after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh airport.