As Peruvians mourned the worst airplane disaster in their history Saturday, anger grew over a perceived lack of air safety in this South American nation, which has suffered a string of such tragedies in past decades.
Calls came from all quarters for both a thorough investigation into the 28-year-old Boeing 737's crash and an overhaul of Peru's air fleet, said to be largely out-of-date, overused and poorly maintained.In the most recent crash, all 117 passengers and six crew members died when a Faucett airlines domestic flight crashed Thursday night about 625 miles south of Lima.
"We just want them to take measures to renew the fleets . . . some are time bombs," said an angry friend of one of the victims outside the morgue in the southern Peruvian city of Arequipa.
The outrage was compounded by mounting evidence that the cause of the accident was a faulty turbine that burst into flames minutes before the plane slammed into a hillside.
Boeing spokesman Russ Young said the 737-200 model that crashed was delivered in 1968, the year the popular twin-engine version went into service.