Global Blacklist Plan to Ground Unsafe Planes

The setting up of a new global blacklist of planes unfit to fly will be discussed this week at a summit meeting between Antonio Tajani, the European transport commissioner, and Robert Kobeh González, president of the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

The meeting follows the crash of a Yemenia airlines airbus off the Comoros islands last week, when 152 passengers and crew died — the sole survivor was a girl of 12 who lives in Paris. Advocates of a global blacklist believe it would prevent carriers in the developing world from using their best aircraft to enter better regulated airspace and then moving passengers to older, less reliable aircraft, as is alleged to have occurred after the Yemenia flight from Marseille to Sana'a. The passengers were transferred on to the plane that crashed on the final leg from Sana'a to Grand Comoros.

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