The Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam (CAAV) has requested local airlines to step up aircraft maintenance after the crash of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 in the Java Sea.
An AirAsia’s aircraft
Vo Huy Cuong, the CAAV’s deputy director, said local airlines had been asked to adhere to maintenance standards.
Cuong said global aviation authorities were investigating the cause of the crash of the Airbus A320-200, at a loss of 162 passengers and crew.
Experts from the European aircraft maker and national and international aviation authorities are attempting to solve how the airliner fell from the sky on a flight from Indonesia’s second city Surabaya to Singapore.
As multinational recovery crews gathered debris and bodies of the dead in the Java Sea, hampered by monsoonal conditions, Cuong said it was imperative that Vietnam’s airlines kept a close watch on their aircraft, in case mechanical error was found to be the cause.
“Indonesia’s AirAsia flew three flights a week on the Jakarta-HCM City flight route without incident from September 2009 until March 2013,” Cuong said.
AirAsia subsidiaries continue to operate flights to Vietnam, including Malaysia AirAsia (AK) and Thai AirAsia (FD), with 11 flights a week from Kuala Lumpur and seven flights from Bangkok to Hanoi, as well as 35 flights from Bangkok and several flights from Malaysia’s Johor Bahru to HCM City.
There were plans by AirAsia to buy stakes in Vietnam’s airlines, but these have yet to be realized.
The AirAsian fleet is predominantly the Airbus A320 for short-haul flights of less than four hours, and the Airbus A330 for longer flights.
Đăng ký: VietNam News