France calls for airlines blacklist. Hypocritical non?

For chauvinism in air transport some sort of award should be given to French Secretary of State for transport Dominique Bussereau who called for a global blacklist of unsafe airlines this week as an extension of the European list.

Why not start with Air France? It totalled an Airbus A340 at Toronto on 2 August 2005 when a very badly flown approach in a wild thunderstorm ending in flames in a gulley just off the end of the runway. It killed 228 people on 1 June when one of its Airbus A330s flew into what were reported as very severe but avoidable thunderstorms in the mid Atlantic.

The French flag carrier made a nonsense statement that day about how the jet had been struck by lightning, which was untrue, and it admitted knowing about a serious issue with unreliable air speed indications in iced up pitots on this type of jet for months before commencing remedial action on the fleet.

How about putting Air France on the list until a full audit of its management of safety concerns in particular pilot training and checking standards is conducted instead of pontificating about other carriers, some of them admittedly very bad ones?

And including SAS for failed oversight of its low cost investment Spanair, which killed 154 people because of lousy pilot standards at Madrid on 20 August last year.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxSeUTo6s3I[/youtube]

There is a lot of work to be done in Europe, M Bussereau. Why not get on with your real job, and clean up the problems at home first?