DR Congo - planes to be destroyed by Fly Congo

[Heathrow Harry]

from the Beeb:-

A Congolese airline is to destroy six planes in a bid to restore confidence in the country's aviation industry.


Fly Congo has been formed from Hewa Bora Airways, which was put on a European Union airline blacklist (http://ec.europa.eu/transport/air-ban/list_en.htm) after a crash in July 2011 killed 74 people.
Its chief executive, Jean-Marc Pajot, told the Associated Press five Boeing-727s and one of another type of plane would be destroyed.


He said he would have a "well maintained" fleet of modern aircraft.


Last year's Hewa Bora crash happened in a storm as the plane attempted to land at Kisangani airport in eastern DR Congo.


Mr Pajot told the BBC: "We have a fleet of aircraft that has not flown for quite a long time. So the first decision for the six aircraft I am talking about is that we decided to destroy that fleet completely.



"Next month we will start to destroy the fleet and to recycle that fleet in metal."


about time too...................

[Golf_Seirra]

Read....'recycle' as use parts for other aircraft...even if they do not fit or have the correct paperwork...:}

[ATC Watcher]

GS : good remark !:}
We have a fleet of aircraft that has not flown for quite a long time.
would also like to know what their definition of "quite a long time" is.
10 years ?

[Herod]

Do I detect a bit of "Africa Bashing" here? The airline appears to be acting correctly in an attempt to restore faith in the country's aviation. Sure, some bits will be salvageable, as they are with any aircraft after scrapping, but the real cause of concern, the aged airframes and engines, will not be. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt.

[CargoOne]

Herod

I always thought that aging airframes and engines are the LAST cause of concern, doesn't matter if that's in Africa or the States.

While Hewa Bora had a few accidents involving engine failures, it wasn't the real cause of crash. And their last 727 crash was CFIT - what airframe age has to do with it?

[Waspilot]

Having worked there for a while, I have no faith that this will bring any improvement to the Industry. Before we go into recycling the fleet of any Airline Company in Congo, we should start by restructuring the CAA and improving the oversight. Without that, and a strong set of regulations in place that will not allow companies to play cowboy in the airspace, I dont thing nothing will change, just saying...:=

[SmilingKnifed]

And just saying correctly.

The endemic corruption through the CAA there, not to mention the number of other cowboy operators makes it a mountain to climb. Don't get me wrong, I wish them well. But I'll believe it when I see it.

Reminds me of the photoshopped pictures from start up airlines (i.e. pipe dreams!) showing their colours on a 73 NG, that they'd stick up in the Oubangi Hotel.

[JetSyndrome]

Poooor 72's! :{

[Tableview]

Perhaps they should employ this guy

BBC News | Africa | Suicide pilot destroys Air Botswana fleet (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/471568.stm)

[N707ZS]

Even if they had brand new aircraft are they able to look after them!