Troops Leaving Afghanistan Never Made It Home

Flags across Spain flew at half-mast Tuesday as recovery workers continued the grisley task of sifting through the wreckage of a chartered troop transport in Turkey. In the wake of the YAK-42D crash, Spanish leaders want Ukranian-Mediterranean Airlines investigated for safety problems. In light of this third crash of a Ukranian charter flight in six months' time, they also want a review of the entire concept of flying Spain's fighting forces on cheap charters.

Monday's crash, which occurred on the YAK's third approach to a refueling stop at the airport near Trebizond, Turkey. Local reports say the aircraft impacted a hillside near the approach in heavy fog and rain. Spain's Minister of Defense, Frederico Trillo, immediately rushed to the accident site. While promising a full investigation into the incident, he also said the YAK-42D was in compliance with NATO safety standards.

Black Boxes Recovered

Turkish soldiers sifting through the charred wreckage Tuesday found more bodies and the aicraft's three flight recorders. They also talked with witnesses, who, like Turkish air traffic controllers, thought something was wrong with the YAK during its third approach to the runway. "I saw a fireball flying through the fog with a thunderous sound," the daily Hurriyet quoted 56-year-old Adil Yilmaz, who lives a few miles from the crash site, as saying. "I feared that it would crash on our village, then it crashed on the Pilav Mountain and began exploding."

Volodymyr Gorbanovskyi, deputy director of UM Air, said the 15-year-old plane's navigation, communications and safety systems were fully renovated in June 2001. A subsequent check was made in April, 2003. "It was not just a cosmetic upgrade, but a full technical modernization  . . . All equipment the pilots needed was modernized to European standards," Gorbanovskyi told The Associated Press.

The aircraft was the only YAK-42D flying for UM Airlines. The Transport Ministry in Ukraine has, like Spain, sent an investigative team to Turkey, searching for clues in the accident. But Ukraine's aviation chief, Volodymyr Maxymov, said there had been "serious violations" in UM Air's certification, licensing and reporting procedures. It cited the director of its air transport department as saying UM Air failed to file for permission to fly from Kabul to Zaragoza.

Too Cheap To Fly?

Should the Spanish military have chartered the UM Air YAK? "Sixty-two Spanish elite troops killed in a Ukrainian plane hired because of its low cost," said the Madrid daily El Mundo in Tuesday's editions. And so it continues - the investigation into the crash, the search for names to go with charred bodies and the hunt for a root cause in this, the worst aviation disaster Spain has ever encountered.

FMI: www.sispain.org