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Company in Cuba plane crash had received safety complaints

Published:Sunday | May 20, 2018 | 12:00 AM
Rains begins to fall as rescue teams search through the wreckage site ofa Boeing 737 that plummeted into a yuca field with more than 100 passengers on board, in Havana, Cuba, on Friday, May 18, 2018. The Cuban airliner crashed just after takeoff from Havana's international airport in Havana, Cuba.

HAVANA (AP):

The Mexican charter company whose 39-year-old plane crashed in Havana had been the subject of two serious complaints about its crews' performance over the last decade, according to authorities in Guyana and a retired pilot for Cuba's national airline.

Mexico's government said late on Saturday that its National Civil Aviation Authority would carry out an operational audit of Damojh airlines to see if its "current operating conditions continue meeting regulations" and to help collect information for the investigation into Friday's crash in Cuba that left 110 dead.

The plane that crashed, a Boeing 737, was barred from Guyanese airspace last year after authorities discovered that its crew had been allowing dangerous overloading of luggage on flights to Cuba, Guyanese Civil Aviation Director Captain Egbert Field told The Associated Press on Saturday.

The plane and crew were being rented from Mexico City-based Damojh by EasySky, a Honduras-based low-cost airline. Cuba's national carrier, Cubana de AviaciÛn, was also renting the plane and crew in a similar arrangement known as a "wet lease" before the aircraft veered on takeoff to the eastern Cuban city of HolguÌn and crashed into a field just after noon Friday, according to Mexican aviation authorities.

A Damojh employee in Mexico City declined to comment, saying that the company would be communicating only through written statements. Mexican authorities said that Damojh had permits needed to lease its aircraft and had passed a November 2017 verification of its maintenance programme. They announced a new audit late Saturday.