05 Jan 2004 18:50:28 GMT
Swiss say two Flash Airlines planes were unsafe
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Adds company officials unavailable)
ZURICH, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Swiss authorities said they had found two aircraft unsafe in 2002 that were operated by the Egyptian Flash Airlines, raising the possibility that one was the plane that crashed into the Red Sea on Saturday.
In Cairo, Flash officials were not immediately available to comment on the Swiss report.
But they have said the doomed charter plane was one of only two that Flash has operated in recent years, including all of 2002, although Swiss officials were unable to confirm positively that it was one of those they had inspected.
The aircraft, bound for Cairo and Paris, crashed after taking off from Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh resort, killing all 148 people on board.
The Swiss Federal Office for Civil Aviation said it had inspected one of the company's aircraft in April 2002 and found that navigation documents were missing, fuel reserves were not calculated to international standards and the signposting of emergency exits was partly "in unusable condition".
"In addition, obvious maintenance deficiencies were found in the areas of the landing gear, the engines and the aircraft steering," it said in a statement.
It said the inspection of a second Flash Airlines aircraft in October 2002 had revealed "essentially the same defects".
After the airline failed to provide sufficient proof that it had remedied the defects, it was barred from landing in Switzerland a few days later, the office said.
It stressed that it was drawing no conclusion about the cause of Saturday's crash.
Egyptian authorities have been eager to defend their aviation safety record, and the head of Flash Airlines told Reuters on Sunday the Swiss landing ban had been based on financial disputes between the airline and its Swiss handling company, rather than safety concerns.