European press review

Papers across Europe consider the air safety implications of Monday night's mid-air collision between a Tupolev passenger aircraft and a Boeing cargo plane.

Russian dailies mention that officials on the ground have been quick to blame the Russian pilots.

The financial crisis at the Franco-American media giant Vivendi Universal also draws comment.

And the "hysteria" surrounding British tennis player Tim Henman, as he attempts to win the men's singles at Wimbledon, is noted by the German press.

Implications for civil aviation

Germany's Frankfurter Rundschau considers the implications of the mid-air collision for air safety at a time when air traffic is increasing dramatically.

Air traffic over Europe is expected to double by 2020

Tribune De Geneve

If it turns out that the worst air disaster in Germany in almost 30 years was caused by a failure of the Tupolev's anti-collision system or a technical malfunction then there is "a chance of making air traffic safer through advances and organisational improvements".

But if human error was the cause, then "that is a sign that accidents will increase with the growing numbers of aircraft in the skies".

In Switzerland, a gloomy Tribune De Geneve fears that Monday's disaster may be "a foretaste of worse to come".

Regulators should act as quickly as possible to draw lessons from this tragedy.

The Times

"Air traffic over Europe," the paper says, "is expected to double by 2020." With current safety standards, it adds, "the number of mid-air collisions will inevitably rise".

"There is a bad shortage of air traffic controllers," the paper says, which leads "to stress and exhaustion" among the 3,500 who have to guide some 26,000 flights to safety in Europe's skies every day.

"The thoroughness of past crash investigations has contributed to the safety of modern aviation," says the London Times. "Regulators should act as quickly as possible to draw lessons from this tragedy."

Russian exasperation

Russian headlines today include "Black Sky - air disaster in southern Germany claims over 70 lives" in the government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

"It was as if the heavens caught fire - 69 of our fellow countrymen and two foreign pilots have died in an air disaster over Germany," said the moderate left-wing Trud.

It was only the Russian investigators who refrained from refering to the nationality of those responsible...

Nezavisimaya Gazeta

The broadsheet Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports claims by Swiss air traffic controllers that the pilots of the Russian plane either did not react or reacted late to instructions to change course and descend.

Under the heading "National origins of the disaster", the latter says Swiss controllers were quick to blame the Russian pilots, although the Germans expressed some doubt about the correctness of an order given to the Boeing to lose height.

"It was only the Russian investigators who refrained from apportioning blame, omitting reference to the nationality of those responsible... " says Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

After Enron, WorldCom and Xerox... Vivendi

Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung writes that the man many Frenchmen thought of as a Napoleon, the chief executive of the crisis-ridden corporate giant Vivendi Universal, has met his Waterloo after being forced to resign following reports that the company tried to exaggerate its profits.

We must start harmonizing the rules of book-keeping on a global scale...

Le Monde

Jean-Marie Messier, the head of Vivendi Universal, "became a symbol of a new, dynamic, outward-looking French entrepreneurship", the paper says. "A brilliant man with much charm, but with a fatal tendency to overestimate himself."

The paper considers it significant that Messier's fate was decided by President Chirac and believes the French government may now grow reluctant to relinquish control over other companies.

If Chirac, "a man of the past", now turns the wheel back towards state-directed capitalism, he will be doing a disservice not only to French enterprise but to the whole country, the paper believes.

"Scandals like Enron, WorldCom or Xerox," says the French Le Monde, "show that the markets lack a clear-cut regulatory system." Now, "France and Europe have also been hit, as shown by the case of Vivendi Universal".

"Difficult though it may be," the paper adds, "we must start harmonizing the rules of book-keeping on a global scale..."

Henmania, a disguised xenophobia?

Under the headline "Who would want to be Tim Henman?", the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes that this question has less to do with what it calls Henman's lack of charisma and more with the mounting hysteria surrounding the British number one men's tennis player as he attempts to win at Wimbledon.

For two or three weeks a year Henman becomes public property and "his every move is minutely analysed". "Like Boris Becker in the past, Henman has an entire country quaking behind him," the paper says.

"Sedate Wimbledon? Not when Tim Henman is playing. The only tradition that counts is that no Englishman has won since 1936."

The European press review is compiled by BBC Monitoring from internet editions of the main European newspapers and some early printed editions.