Pilot error to blame for Cuba crash says airline, but officials are still working

The Mexican airline involved in one of the most deadly air crashes in Cuban history has announced that pilot error was to blame for an air crash that killed 112 people in May. However,  the Cuban authorities have dismissed the findings as premature 

The commission investigating the incident issued a statement which indicated that it has not completed its analysis of “many factors” which could have contributed to the accident on the 18th May. “For that reason, any assertion about the possible causes that caused the fatal accident is premature.” the commission asserts.

Damojh Airlines the Mexican airline at the centre of the accident had said in a statement Monday that the pilots of the Boeing 737 took off too steeply, a much higher angle than is usual before the aircraft crashed near the runway of the international airport in Havana.

Damojh Aerolineas, which also operates under the name Global Air, says it had recreated the flight with the black boxes - the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder and a simulator, which demonstrated the pilots were at fault. 

Mexico’s civil aviation authority confirmed it was still investigating the crash with its own analysis and has not yet issued a finding.  Damojh is desperate to regain its air operators licence in Mexico so it can resume flying operations. 

Mexico suspends Damojh's operations

Mexico’s civil aviation authority has confirmed it has temporarily suspended Damojh’s operations, the airline that owned the 39-year-old Boeing 737 that crashed in Cuba, as the death toll rose to 111.

The Mexican authorities said it has suspended the airlines' operations while it made sure the firm had adhered to regulations and so it could gather all relevant information to help investigators find out what caused the deadly crash.

It is not the first time the airline, Damojh, has had its operations suspended, the airline that has two other 737's had been suspended twice before for regulatory compliance reviews the authority confirmed this week. 

Previous safety complaints about Mexican Airline that crashed in Cuba

It has been revealed that the Mexican charter airline whose 39-year-old Boeing 737 crashed in Havana, Cuba, on Friday leaving 110 dead, had been the subject of two serious safety complaints during the last decade.

Mexico's National Civil Aviation Authority will now carry out an operational audit of Damojh Airlines, the government confirmed, in order to ascertain if the carrier's “current operating conditions continue meeting regulations” The government also said that it would help collect information for the investigation. 

According to authorities in Guyana, the 737 that crashed on Friday had been banned from Guyanese airspace last year after authorities found that crew had been allowing dangerous overloading of luggage on flights to Cuba.  Guyanese 

737 crashes in Cuba just after take-off

The Caribbean island of Cuba is in mourning today after a plane carrying 104 passengers and 9 crew crashed shortly after takeoff from Havana today.

The Boeing 737 aircraft had just departed Jose Marti International Airport at 11am local time, when it came down in a field. Wreckage and debris from the crash was scattered across the field near the municipality of Rancho Boyeros. 

Local media reported that three people had been pulled from the wreckage of the airliner and taken to Calixto Garcia hospital in Havana. One subsequentially died from the trauma and burns, while the two others are said to be in a serious condition.

The aircraft was operating flight CU972, a domestic flight from Havana to Holguín and according to local media had been leased to state airline Cubana de Aviación by the Mexican company Damojh Aerolíneas. Mexican transport officials confirmed that the 737 jet belonged to Damojh Airlines, which was founded in 1990, which operates by the name of Global Air. The charter carrier has three 737 aircraft and the one that crashed was manufactured in 1979.