Colombian airline West Caribbean Airways (WCA), owner of the plane that crashed Tuesday in Sierra de Perija, Venezuela, said Thursday it has complied with maintenance and security controls.
A WCA MD-82 airplane with 160 people on board, en route from Tocumen International Airport in Panama to De Lamentin terminal outside Fort-de-France, capital of Martinique, crashed Tuesday. There were no survivors.
A spokesman from WCA said the company's resources are assigned first to complying with national and international safety standards required in every country reached by its aircraft.
The airplane had been inspected and approved by Colombian, Panamanian and French authorities, and all aerial navigation certificates and permissions for chartered flights were in force, he added.
Meanwhile, according to the Colombian Transport Ministry, the WCA fleet was subjected to a technical inspection one month ago.
Transport Minister Andres Uriel Gallego said its ministry and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) have begun parallel investigations in order to determine whether the airline may continue operating.
Gallego also asked the CAA to carry out a technical inspection of all airlines operating in the country in order to avoid new tragedies.
The WCA was created in 1998 in San Andres. During its first three years in operation, it registered a growth level that exceeded expectations for any airline competing with large Colombian airlines.
In the last two years, the WCA encountered an economic crisis with liabilities for 14 billion Colombian pesos (about US$5.6 million), a debt that was to be reorganized in 2006.