The West Caribbean Airways MD-82 aircraft that crashed on Tuesday, killing 160 people, passed a safety inspection on Monday, although the airline has been penalized before for excessive weight and other safety violations, a Colombian aviation official said.

Officials inspected the McDonnell Douglas MD-82 on Monday at Rio Negro Airport in northern Colombia and found it ready to fly, Col. Eduardo Montealegre, acting head of Colombia's Civil Aviation Department, told reporters.

"It was a complete inspection and the aircraft was ready to fly," Montealegre said.

"It crashed later but there are many variables affecting an aircraft in flight and answers will be provided by the (crash) investigation," he said.

About 160 people were killed when the jet crashed en route from Panama to the French Caribbean island of Martinique early Tuesday at a cattle farm near Venezuela's border with Colombia, authorities said.

The MD-82 was delivered to its first operator in 1986. There are 571 units of that model operating in the world today and many more of the MD-80, the plane on which it is based, according to Boeing spokesman Jim Proulx in Seattle.

The crashed aircraft underwent maintenance in July to change an insulating fiber in the fuselage, following a recommendation made by Boeing to all operators of MD-82s around the world, West Caribbean Airways board member Jorge Perez said.

The company, based in the Colombian city of Medellin, was fined USD$46,000 in January for safety violations, according to Civil Aviation Department spokesman.

In an audit, the department identified problems including lack of crew training, incorrect use of flight logs and problems with maintenance. It said the airline failed to properly check routes or register flights and crew time, and that it exceeded permitted flight times.

"We have penalized crew members, operations chiefs and the company itself," he said. Montealegre said, adding that authorities were investigating the Colombia-owned airline's financial problems.

In March, one of West Caribbean's Czech-built Let L-410 aircraft failed to climb and hit hills close to the runway on the Colombian island of Providencia. Two crew and six passengers were killed.

West Caribbean was founded in 1998.