South Africa's Nationwide leases plane for London flight

http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/02122007/325...on-flight.html

South Africa's Nationwide leases plane for London flight

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's Civil Aviation Authority
(SACAA) said on Sunday grounded carrier Nationwide Airlines had leased
an aircraft from Dutch airline KLM AIRF.PA to fly passengers to
London on Sunday evening.

SACAA on Friday grounded Nationwide's flights, raising fresh concerns
after an engine fell off one of the airline's planes earlier this
month.

SACAA said the company could not guarantee continued safety and that
it had suspended approval for the unlisted airlines' maintenance
organisation, which had failed to comply with regulations to meet the
authority's safety standards.

The airline authority also suspended the certificates of airworthiness
of all aircraft maintained by Nationwide.

SACAA spokeswoman Phindiwe Gewbu said Nationwide had to prove that the
KLM aircraft complied with civil aviation safety requirements before
it would be allowed to fly.

"As we speak the inspection is still taking place ... We want to make
sure that everything is up to scratch," she told Reuters.

Gwebu said the SACAA inspection should be completed by 12 a.m. British
time. "If they are not happy, the flight will not go ahead."



On November 2, South Africa's Civil Aviation Authority grounded all
Boeing BA.N 737 200 aircraft in the country for safety checks after
an engine fell off the wing of a Nationwide Airline aircraft carrying
106 passengers in Cape Town. There were no injuries sustained by
anyone on board or on the ground.

Nationwide, whose spokesman Rodger Whittle was not available for
comment, has flights to London's Gatwick airport and says on its
website that it has more than 350 domestic, regional and international
weekly flights, including to Zambia.

(Reporting by Ron Derby, editing by Will Waterman)