Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

AIRLINE

Thirty screws ‘missing’ from Air France jet

Air France has suspended the maintenance of its aircraft by Chinese company Taeco after 30 screws were found to be missing from one of its planes, it said on Thursday.

Published: 1 December 2011 15:54 CET

Thirty screws 'missing' from Air France jet

Photo: Antoine Fleury-Gobert (file)

The airline made the discovery in mid-November and said the screws were missing from a protective panel of an A340 plane after a full service by the Chinese company.

Taeco, based in Xiamen, southeast China, is one of the top service companies for long-haul planes and its other customers include British Airways, American Airlines, JAL, Emirates and Lufthansa.

“We have stopped sending our planes for the moment” to Taeco, Air France CEO Alexandre de Juniac said in Beijing.

Air France made the move as it awaits the results of its investigation, which is expected to take “a few days”.

On Tuesday the Chinese firm announced it was launching its own probe.

Taeco has serviced Air France’s Boeing 747 planes for over four years, representing “10 percent of our long-haul fleet”, Juniac said.

The incident involved the second A340 plane sent to Xiamen for a full service.

A full service occurs every six years and takes just over a month, costing “several million dollars”, an Air France official said.

Taeco services “between five and seven planes per year” for Air France, Juniac said. In an earlier statement, the number had been put at “less than five a year”.

An Air France Boeing 747-400 was grounded in 2010 following a full service in China after some of the plane’s surfaces were repainted using potentially flammable paint. The plane had been in the skies for over three weeks.

China derides Copenhagen democracy meet as 'political farce'

Demonstrators gathered outside the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday. Photo: Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix

The Copenhagen Democracy Summit was held Monday and Tuesday in the Danish capital and organised by the Alliance of Democracies, an organisation targeted by Beijing sanctions in March and founded by former NATO boss Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

In addition to Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen and Hong Kong democracy activist Nathan Law, Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod also participated in the forum by video link, which Beijing said violated “the one-China principle.”

“This summit is a political farce,” the Chinese embassy in Denmark wrote in a statement published on Tuesday. “Inviting those who advocate Taiwan and Hong Kong ‘independence’ to the meeting violates the one-China principle and interferes in China’s internal affairs,” it said.

“Some hypocritical western politicians are good at meddling in other countries’ internal affairs and creating divisions and confrontation in the name of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’. They are bound to fail,” it added.

At the conference on Monday, Kofod said it was “deplorable” that Beijing had imposed sanctions on 10 European individuals and organisations in response to EU sanctions on Xinjiang officials over their actions against the Uyghur Muslim minority.

Like most countries, Denmark applies the one-China principle — under which Beijing bars other countries from having simultaneous diplomatic relations with Taipei — though it does maintain relations with Taiwan.

Cut off politically from the rest of China since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the territory is self-governing but is not recognised by
the United Nations.

Beijing considers Taiwan a rebel province that will one day return under its control, by force if necessary.

China’s sabre-rattling has increased considerably over the past year, with fighter jets and nuclear-capable bombers breaching Taiwan’s air defence zone on a near-daily basis.

“Our government is fully aware of the threats to regional security, and is actively enhancing our national defence capabilities to protect our
democracy,” Tsai told the conference in a video address on Monday. US President Joe Biden is expected to present his China strategy soon, as
calls mount for him to publicly commit to defending Taiwan militarily in the event of a Chinese attack.

Url copied to clipboard!