Sarkozy plane fire delays trip

AN ENGINE fire on the presidential plane delayed Nicolas Sarkozy’s state visit to Africa.

Newspaper reports said the one-hour delay before boarding a different flight was enough to irritate Sarkozy, who last year ordered that the presidential jet be upgraded.

According to Le Parisien, the mayor of Levallois Patrick Balkany, a member of the party, said: “At the beginning he was calm but then he got irritated. It’s not normal that an incident of this type happens to a presidential plane. It happened on the ground but what if it had taken place mid-flight? I think we would have been in trouble.”

The incident happened at Villacoublay airport when an engine on the A319 caught fire while taxiing. The presidential party was due to flight out to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

An order for two new Airbus A330s, due to be delivered in 2010, came after the president’s visit to China for the Olympics where a chartered media plane arrived before Sarkozy’s aircraft which had to stop to refuel on route.

Civilian and military inquiries have been opened into the incident.

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