The explosion of a fuel tank in a decommissioned airliner at the Taif Regional Airport that killed four Pakistani workers on Saturday happened because the company that bought the aircraft had failed to meet safety precautions, the General Authority for Civil Aviation said in a statement on Sunday. Abdulhamid Bin Hammad Aba Al-O'ri, the authority's official spokesman, said in a statement issued late on Sunday that Regency Projects, the company contracted to dismantle the abandoned plane, had failed to follow the standards and industrial safety procedures. Four Pakistani men who worked for the company had been killed when a fuel tank of the decommissioned Tristar exploded on Saturday while the men were dismantling the plane for spare parts. The investigation, he added, showed that the workers, who were cutting through parts of the wing, including the fuel tank in question, using an electrical saw, have neglected to verify whether or not the tank contained any traces of jet fuel and failed to drain it properly. “consequently the fire broke out and the tank exploded leading to the death of four workers and the injury of another one,” he said.
