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Article: Old airliners scrapped due to economics, not age
- Article from:
- AP Online
- Article date:
- June 30, 2009
- Author:
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The Airbus 310 that crashed Tuesday was 19 years old, yet experts say older planes can keep going strong for years as long as companies are willing to invest what it takes to keep them sky-worthy.
"Aircraft are usually retired due to economics rather than due to wearing out," said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Virginia, an international aviation safety think tank.
Still, whenever an accident involves an older passenger aircraft, the age of the plane often becomes a focus of speculation about the cause of the crash.
After the crash Tuesday of a Yemenia jet with 153 people on board near the Comoros islands, some French ...