Charter Flights Under the Microscope

As relatives of those killed in last weekend's Red Sea plane crash mourned their dead in two memorial services today, doubts grew in shell-shocked France about the safety of the airline involved and about the wisdom of entrusting one's life to any small foreign charter company at all.

The apparently accidental crash of Flash Airlines flight FSH604, which plunged into the Red Sea nearly three minutes after taking off from the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh at 4.44am last Saturday, killed all 148 people on board, including 133 French tourists. It has dominated headlines and news bulletins here ever since.

At first the media focus, understandably, was on human aspects of the drama. Entire families who had spent the New Year's Eve of their dreams in Sharm el-Sheikh were wiped out in the disaster.

All six members of the Bisson family, for example, from Preaux-de-Perche, west of Paris, died in the crash - father Jean-Marie, mother Marie, their sons Romain and Anthony and twin daughters Sarah and Suzy.

Philippe Fouchard from Dijon, an international authority on European law, made a habit of taking his extended family on holiday with him over the festive season each year. His wife Annie, son Jean-Yves and daughter Isabelle, together with Jean-Yves's wife and two children and Isabelle's husband and three children, were all on the flight - 11 people in all. One son, David, decided not to go this year and is now the sole surviving member of the family.

But, after it emerged that the Swiss civil aviation authority had barred Flash over one year ago from flying into any of its country's airports or even entering its airspace because of serious safety fears, questions began to be asked about just how reliable this company really was and about the dozens of other local charter airlines routinely used by European tour operators.

The Swiss authority said spot checks carried out in the course of 2002 on Flash's two Boeing 737s had revealed major problems with the aircrafts' navigation documents, fuel reserves and emergency exits, as well as "significant technical and maintenance-related malfunctionings" in the landing gear and steering systems that, taken together, "represented a grave threat to air safety".

A number of former passengers of the airline emerged to talk of the planes' "shocking" state of repair, of missing oxygen masks, torn seats, dirty and smelly interiors and broken luggage compartments.

"Rarely in the course of my career have I seen a plane in such a state," said one expert former passenger, the manager of Angers regional airport.

Moreover, it emerged that in its 11 years of existence, the Boeing that crashed last Saturday had been owned by five different airlines and been through 25,592 take-off and landing cycles - an average of six a day, and pretty much the maximum possible.

The French transport minister Gilles de Robien, on the other hand, said French civil aviation authorities had carried out three checks on Flash's planes this year, after having been warned by their colleagues in Switzerland, and found "absolutely no cause for concern".

"The latter two checks in particular were almost perfect," he added.

Statistically, experts say, the increased risk of taking a charter flight over a scheduled one is marginal and due not so much to technical as to human problems, such as overworked staff flying constantly changing, unfamiliar routes and landing in smaller, less well-known airports.

Most European charter companies use planes at least as modern as those used by national airlines, are bound by the same maintenance regulations, and subcontract their maintenance work to a major carrier like Air France, KLM or British airways, experts say.

Everyone admits, however, that some small airlines, particularly in Africa, South America and parts of eastern Europe do not play by the same rules. There is, as yet, no conclusive evidence that Flash was one of them, nor indeed that the crash was directly attributable to negligence or inadequate maintenance, but the suspicion remains.

And, amid growing media speculation and mounting anxiety among travellers about the safety records of the charter planes they reluctantly end up flying in, Mr de Robien proposed to parliament some significant reforms to France's air transport laws, including an obligation on the part of tour operators to inform passengers exactly what airline they will be flying on.

The precise cause of Saturday's crash will be known only once the aircraft's two black boxes have been retrieved. Both devices, lying about 1,500 metres apart, are too far under the water to be retrieved with equipment currently at the scene.

The French government has had to borrow from France Telecom a remote-control submarine that can dive to the necessary depth - 600-800 metres below sea level - and recover objects weighing up to 500 kg.

At least one family has filed a formal complaint for manslaughter, adding a French criminal investigation to the civil inquiry already under way.

The search for body parts and debris has so far produced only small chunks of wreckage, personal belongings like toys, sandals and a wedding ring, and some 44 bags of shattered human remains, according to the Egytian press.

No identifiable body has been retrieved and exhaustive DNA analysis will be needed before the definitive list of victims can finally be established.

Today, however, some 130 relatives of the victims who asked to be flown out to the site wept at a service on the shores of the Red Sea and threw wreaths onto the water where the plane went down.

"We recall the memory of whole families who shared the same joys and were hit by the same fate," the French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, said. "France was touched deep in the heart by this tragedy. We cry for our missing, and lend our support to you all."