A Yemenia Airways Airbus 310-300 jet crashed Tuesday with 153 people on board due to bad weather conditions and not a technical fault, the carrier's chairman said Tuesday.
"The plane crashed because of bad weather, not because of technical issues. It was very windy and still is at the airport in the Comoros," Yemenia Chairman Abdulkalek Saleh al-Kadi told news agency Zawya Dow Jones by telephone. "All our aircraft are very well maintained."
Kadi denied reports that numerous faults had been found on the aircraft that came down and said the carrier had been in regular contact with aviation safety authorities.
"It's routine that we are and nothing to do with this crash," he said.
Earlier Tuesday, France's Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau told France's i-Tele television that French aviation inspectors had found a "number of faults" during a 2007 inspection of the plane.