Is the Airbus safe to fly?

With two similar crashes, is the Airbus safe to fly?

The recent unexplainable disappearance of an Air France Airbus 330 in the Atlantic Ocean, killing all onboard, is far too similar for comfort to the Air New Zealand Airbus 320 that crashed into the Mediterranean Sea on November 28, 2008.
The Air New Zealand jet was on a delivery check flight after having been leased to German XL Airways when it suddenly went into an irreversible dive and crashed into the Mediterranean, killing two German and five New Zealand aircrew.

No passengers were onboard. Its black boxes have been recovered.

Since then the French aviation crash investigators have been dragging their feet in solving this mysterious crash.

But, both the airlines, and not least the flying public, have a clear and indisputable right to know if Airbus aircraft are indeed dangerous to fly. Particularly after the recent fatal Air France crash.

At least we have two similar, and so far inexplicable, Airbus crashes, with no survivors; two crashes with an unnecessary loss of lives!

Thus, many want to know: Is Airbus and French investigators hiding deadly faults on their aircraft in a morbid cover-up?

LISA AHLQVIST

BANGKOK

No other verdict could be expected, sad as it is

Re: Verdict on Tak Bai deaths disappointing, Letters, yesterday

I can fully understand the writer's distress at this truly disappointing verdict, but anyone with a modicum of insight should not have expected anything else. The administration at the time, by issuing emergency decrees, gave anyone acting on behalf of the government absolute immunity.

The army could have machine-gunned all 1,292 detainees and the verdict of the judges would have been the same.

Their hands were as tied as those of the suspects. They do not make the law; they have to interpret and enforce it and that is what they did. Some people may not like the consequences, but that's what the government enacted and now Thailand will have to live with those consequences

Any decent human being would balk at having to find such a verdict but there were no alternatives; immunity means immunity. And unless and until a more sophisticated policy is in place in the South, this can only recur.

I do feel sympathy for the security forces in the field. They are woefully ill-equipped and ill-trained for the task assigned to them, and the officer corps has been shown, by consequences of the Tak Bai incident, to be incompetent and unfit to command.

However, they are not the real villains in this saga - that title rests with the Thaksin Shinawatra government which created these blanket immunities without sufficient understanding of the abilities and competence of those empowered to undertake a task they were not qualified to do.

The only glimmer of virtue in this depressing tale is that General Surayud Chulanont, when prime minister, apologised for the deaths and authorised financial amends, and that will be to his eternal credit.