Aircraft fined for flying from Eritrea

A South African-registered passenger plane which landed in Addis Ababa was fined US $5,000 for violating air traffic rules, the pro-Ethiopian government Walta Information Centre said on Thursday. Ethiopia’s civil aviation authority said in a statement that the aircraft had been permitted earlier to fly from Khartoum, Sudan, to Addis Ababa, but that it flew instead from Asmara, Eritrea, to Addis Ababa via the Red Sea, changing its flight schedule without informing the authority, Walta said. The aircraft, which belonged to a company known as Ross Air Executive Air Charter PTY Limited, landed at the Bole International Airport on 4 August, the statement said. The air route between Ethiopia and Eritrea has been closed since the start of the border war in 1998.