Angola: Where is the national airline TAAG headed? · Global Voices
Clara Onofre

A year and a half after having been authorized to resume flights to Portugal, the Angolan airline TAAG, is again involved in serious problems related to the safety of its planes.
Yesterday, December 6, a little after having taken off from Lisbon's Portela Airport, passengers and crew that were aboard the Boeing 777 to Luanda heard a noise and intense vibration caused by a number of parts that came loose from the engine of the airplane. The parts fell on the streets of the town of Almada, causing some physical damage and injuring two but not seriously.
There was no need to wait for the reaction of bloggers, faced with the seriousness of the situation. The Pululu blog read:
Segundo as agências noticiosas e televisões a cidade de Almada terá sido hoje palco de sementeira de peças que terão sido projectadas de um avião da TAAG que teria descolado momentos antes do aeroporto da Portela, em Lisboa. Dado que os aviões da TAAG que “circulam” nos céus europeus são, em princípio, novos, é de crer que a Boeing, empresa que os forneceu , não deverá estar muito bem vista. Ou será que voltamos aos tempos dos “frendship/fokker” e “dakotas” da antiga DTA que estavam todos “aparafusados” com fios? Espero bem que tenha sido só um pequeno percalço na manutenção e sem grande impacto excepto, como anuncia a SIC (estação de televisão privada portuguesa), os 10 autocarros destruídos e os dois feridos ligeiros.”
Boeing 777 of  TAAG Angola Airlines, by Paulo Guerreiro on Flickr (with Creative Commons license)
Faced with this complex situtation, the pilots were forced to alter the flight and emergency land at the airport in Lisbon. The more than 120 passengers were taken to a hotel and it is said that TAAG does not intend to reimburse customers for their return to Angola.
In parallel, the company already made it known, through its representative in Portugal, that it will take responsibility for the results of the incident, by way of an investigation already underway, to determine cause of the fault.
In 2007, the European Union put TAAG on its black lits of airlines [pt] prohibited from flying in European airspace after France had detected serious deficiencies in the safety of its airplanes. .
On the blog Contraditório [pt] reference is made to this hardly acceptable episode for the airline with the Angolan flag
Desde 2006 que estava em curso uma investigação por parte da União Europeia à companhia aérea angolana TAAG. Pelo que se sabe, foi a França que, pela primeira vez, detectou anomalias graves a nível da segurança dos aviões desta companhia. Agora, que acabou a investigação, a EU decidiu proibir a entrada destes aviões no espaço aéreo europeu. Acho muito bem, as regras são iguais para todos. A reacção de Angola foi apenas uma: cuidado, muito cuidado, se proíbem os nossos voos aí, nós proibimos os vossos voos aqui (Angola). Quer dizer: nem se fala em tentar seguir as directrizes de segurança mínimas. Faz-se chantagem, gasta-se menos e costuma resultar.
At the time, and to minimize the loss, TAAG opted to rent planes from South African Airlines, including crews from that country.
In 2009 the restriction was partially lifted and the EU recommended that the Angolan airline resume flights between Luanda and Lisbon, with the Instituto Nacional de Aviação Civil (National Civil Aviation Institute) commiting to do inspections on the aircraft that operated this route. Apparently, the collaboration was not adequate.
According to the author of the blog Linha de Rumo [pt]:
Parece que nem com a ajuda da TAP (Transportadora Aérea de Portugal) na manutenção a coisa vai… ou então já são problemas antigos, afinal o mesmo me aconteceu em 1 de Abril de 2007 e aconteceu novamente em 2 de Abril de 2009 em Luanda na TAP…
What remains to be seen is how this sad episode will influence the relationship between TAAG and the European Union and with its customers who have for a long time complained about the national carrier for a number of different reasons, delays being the most common one. New developments are expected soon.