Brazilian Authorities Forced Air Comet Airliner to Turn Back to Spain

An Air Comet Airbus A330-200, registration EC-KXB performing flight A7-39 (Nov. 5) from Madrid (Spain) to Buenos Aires Ezeiza (Argentina) with 280 passengers, was overhead the Atlantic about 5 hours into the flight, when Brazilian authorities denied overflight permission, forcing the crew to turn and return to Madrid, where the aircraft landed safely about 11 hours after departure.

The airline reported, that they were in possession of all required paperwork to pass over Brazil, however failure of coordination and due to security reasons it was necessary to return to Spain.

Sources in Spain and Brazil suggest, that the air return was the result of bureaucratic problems while payment terms of debt are being negotiated. Air Comet had built up substantial debt with the Brazilian government over non-payment of air taxes and had repeatedly failed promises to pay the debt.