Swiftair pilots of Air Algerie plane ‘very experienced’

The Air Algerie plane with more than 100 people on board which crashed over Mali on Thursday was operated by private Spanish charter company Swiftair.

The wreckage of the McDonnell Douglas MD-83 plane, which was flying from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso to the Algerian capital Algiers, was located 50 kilometres (31 miles) north of the Burkina Faso border in Mali’s Gossi region.

The flight’s two Spanish pilots were employed by Swiftair on temporary contracts and were “very experienced”, according to the Spanish pilots union Sepla.

Here are some facts on Swiftair and its crew:

COMPANY HISTORY – Founded in 1986, Swiftair specialises in leasing its aircraft for cargo flights and since 2002 for passenger flights in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, according to its website.

The Madrid-based company has more than 400 employees and a fleet of over 30 planes, including Boeing 727, Boeing 737, Embraer 120 and McDonnell Douglas MD-83 jets like the one which crashed over Mali.

Swiftair usually “wet leases” its aircraft to airlines, meaning it grants them access to the plane, crew, insurance and maintenance in exchange for a flat fee.

“Wet leasing” is a “common practice” by airlines when demand for seats surpasses the capacity of their own fleets, said Agustin Guzman of Sepla.

Swiftair had a plane based in Algeria which regularly covered the Ouagadougou-Algiers route, he added.

CREW – Swiftair has not revealed the identity of the two pilots of the McDonnell Douglas MD-83 plane that crashed over Mali but Guzman said they were both “very experienced and had a great deal of experience with this type of aircraft”.

Both pilots joined Swiftair from Spanish airline Spanair, which ceased operations in 2012, four years after one of its planes crashed on take-off at Madrid airport, killing 154 people.

They were recruited by Swiftair by a specialised temporary work agency, said Guzman.

Algerian Transport Minister Amar Ghoul said “this plane had already made this flight with the same crew five times.”

SAFETY – Swiftair is certified as a Spanish air transport company so it must follow Spanish and European rules even when it is flying outside of Spain, said Guzman.

While the company is not well known by the general public “it does not have a bad reputation” in the aviations sector, he added.

The plane which crashed over Mali passed its yearly safety review in January, according to the Spanish government.

It was inspected in Marseille by French civil aviation experts who gave it the all clear.

In 2012, another of Swiftair’s MD-83s damaged its right wing while landing at Afghanistan’s Kandahar airport, according to Spain’s transport ministry. No one was injured.

“Every airline in the world has had incidents which have been investigated by the authorities,” said Guzman.

The region in northern Mali where the plane crashed uses technical means to aid air navigation “that are much inferior to what we have in Europe”, according to Sepla.

“For example there is not an air traffic controller who directly supervises a plane. We indicate our position to the air traffic controller,” said Guzman.

“Since we know there is no radar control, we inform other pilots as well of our position,” he added.

The region is in an “intertropical zone” which is known for “being very active where we experience many storms,” he added.