Sabena of the company, he stopped the illegal payments. "Terzake" went on to state that this might explain why the Belgian board members remained quiet when it became apparent Swissair was exploiting Sabena and eventually drove the company into bankruptcy. On December 14, 2007, Georges Jaspis, a former World War II pilot in No. 609 Squadron RAF and the Sabena pilot with the most flying hours (27,000) died. Captain Jaspis was the pilot who inaugurated the Manchester to New York service in October 1953 and who collected the first Sabena Boeing 707 and 747. He had escaped Belgium during the war
Sabena Tutsis and moderate Hutus at the Hôtel des Mille Collines of Kigali, saving them from being slaughtered by the Interahamwe militia during the Rwandan genocide (this is depicted in the motion picture "Hotel Rwanda"). In March and April 1998 two McDonnell-Douglas MD-11 aircraft, both leased from CityBird, joined the fleet and such long-haul destinations as Newark, Montreal and São Paulo were (re)introduced. 1999 saw new colours introduced to the fleet, beginning with an Airbus A340. One of the latest fleet types that Sabena introduced, right after the A321 and A320 was the A319 which saw service in 2000. These new