Can anyone believe that the Air France plane that takes passengers daily from Paris to Beirut landed last Thursday night in Damascus instead of Beirut because the plane's team in France believed that landing at Beirut Airport, where members of the Moqdad clan had blocked the road, was not safe for its passengers? When the plane was above Beirut, carrying French Ambassador Patrice Paoli, who had cut short his vacation to be around for the visit of Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius to Lebanon, the pilot received an order from the company's management that landing at Beirut Airport was not safe, and that he should continue directly to land at Amman Airport. However, after arriving over Beirut, the captain did not have enough fuel to do so. A decision was then made to make an emergency landing in Damascus. When the plane arrived, it landed in an isolated area and the passengers were asked to shut the curtains of the windows. When the pilot wanted to buy some fuel, the Damascus Airport authorities asked him to pay in cash and he did not have enough. Therefore, he asked some passengers to chip in; the company then paid the required amount and the flight ended without incident. The plane went to Larnaca and landed at the Cypriot airport, where the passengers spent the night, and then went to Beirut the following day. The questions that were asked to the passengers on the plane show that the crew was very cooperative with the passengers, who were quite calm, despite the anxiety over a French plane landing at Damascus Airport, as France is now deeply hostile to the regime of President Bashar Assad. Also, the airport is in a country that is seeing violent clashes between the regime and its people. The mystery is over the identity of the professional genius from Air France in Paris who drew up this flight plan for the captain, and prevented him from landing in Beirut, even though planes from every part of the world landed there that night. The pilot informed the French ambassador, who was aboard, that his company had told him to go to Amman, but he did not have enough fuel. Therefore, he had to make an emergency landing in Damascus. But the strange thing is that the company did not advise him to land in Larnaca, which was closer than Amman. How could a plane headed to a "hot" area such as Lebanon and Syria not be carrying the fuel needed if a longer, emergency flight had to be undertaken? Let us assume that for a technical reason, the pilot could not land in Beirut and had to continue along – what would he do? As for the security reason, did Air France believe that the Syrian authorities would really seize a Lebanese opponent of the Syrian regime if he had been on board? The decision by Air France's management to land in Damascus, which was not that of the pilot – according to Al-Hayat's information – but of the company in Paris, was irresponsible and resulted from clear ignorance and negligence. The company should punish the person responsible for this dangerous decision, which if not for luck, would have killed the passengers because of ignorance about the region. Air France should also review the policy of its planes' having enough fuel for a safe flight to a tense region. As for the company's statement afterward, about passengers being asked to pitch in and pay for fuel, it was poor – it did not reflect the dangerous nature of what happened. The essential issue here is not the passengers' being asked to pay for fuel, but the fact that their lives were put in danger because a decision was made based on ignorance of the region. Imagine, for example, that a prominent Syrian dissident had been on board, or a Lebanese official who has been threatened by the regime – how would the trip have ended? Punishing the people responsible for the decision is necessary for an international airline that has a good reputation, and that enjoys popularity among passengers. The incident certainly could have become a disaster, if not for the luck factor.
