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Mozambique: Air Corridor May Not Fly Again
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Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
3 April 2008
Posted to the web 3 April 2008
Maputo
The private Mozambican airline Air Corridor may never fly again because both of its Boeing 737s are grounded in South Africa with serious safety problems, according to a report in the latest issue of the weekly Maputo paper "Magazine Independente" (MI).
Air Corridor last flew in January. At that time one of its Boeings was already undergoing repair in Johannesburg. The second then suffered a bird strike at the airport in the northern city of Nampula. A large bird was sucked into one of the engines, and so this plane too had to be sent to South Africa.
Air Corridor blamed the national airport company, ADM, for the bird strike, but ADM retorted that it had done all in its power to keep birds away from the runway.
"Magazine Independente" says it has acquired a copy of a report dated 25 January, sent by Aeronexus, the South African company trying to repair the two Boeings, to the Mozambican Civil Aviation Institute (IACM), which indicates that the problems with the aircraft go far beyond a simple bird strike.
Aeronexus noted that Air Corridor has no record of the routine repairs and inspections of its aircraft - and this fact alone would be enough for the civil aviation authorization authorities to withdraw the company's licence to fly.
The lack of certified maintenance is a serious matter indeed, and calls into question the safety of the aircraft. Contacted by the paper, a source in the IACM said the Institute would soon make an announcement on the Aeronexus warning, because "the matter is serious and involves people's safety".
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Air Corridor is the flagship company of the Gulamo Group, a business based in Nampula. It began operating domestic routes, in competition with the state-owned Mozambique Airlines (LAM) four years ago, offering much lower fares than LAM.
But there were always those who had suspicions about Air Corridor - so much so that in December 2004 the US Embassy issued a note forbidding any of its staff from traveling on Air Corridor planes. The company protested vigorously, and in February 2007 the embassy lifted its ban. But it is now beginning to look as if the embassy's fears were well-grounded.
Back in January, Air Corridor promised that it would resume flights some time in February. That has not happened, and MI's attempts to speak to the company's managers were fruitless. The paper was told that the key management figures, both in Nampula and in Maputo, were out of the country.
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| Copyright © 2008 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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