The China Airlines jet that crashed into the Taiwan Straits split
into four pieces before plunging into the choppy waters, killing
225 passengers and crew, the chief crash investigator said Sunday.
Search crews on Sunday pulled 83 bodies from seas that reeked of
jet fuel, but the Boeing 747-200's flight data and voice recorders,
or "black boxes," had not yet been recovered, leaving the
accident's cause a mystery.
About 20 minutes after Flight CI611 took off from Taipei's
international airport Saturday, radar showed it "disintegrated"
into four pieces before dropping off the radar screen, said Kay
Yong, managing director of Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council.
"There was an in-flight breakup above the altitude of 30,000 feet.
We are very positive about this," Yong said.
Yong and other officials would not speculate on what caused the
22-year-old plane to break up.
The US National Transportation Safety Board sent three staffers to
help Taiwanese officials with the investigation.
James L.S. Chang, a China Airlines vice president, declined to
offer a crash theory but said the accident was unusual.
"At such a high altitude ... to have something go wrong -- and the
pilot didn't even have time to send a distress signal. Now, that's
a big question mark," Chang said.
The transcript of the pilots' conversation with the control tower
was released Sunday, but it offered no clues about the crash's
cause. The pilots never mentioned any problems.
Official familiar said little was known about the plane's breakup.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, speculated that
it seemed more likely that the plane exploded -- either from a bomb
or a malfunction.
Also Sunday, local government ordered China Airlines, Taiwan's
biggest carrier, to ground the remaining four Boeing 747-200 planes
in its fleet until inspections prove they are safe. The cargo
planes are between 13 and 22 years old.
"There are many causes that could lead to high-altitude
disintegration. It might have something to do with the plane's
structure and mechanical problems," said Chang Chia-chu, "vice
transportation minister," who announced the decision to ground the
planes.
Chang also said the airline, which is trying to shed a reputation
as one of the world's most dangerous carriers, must step up
inspections of its 46 passenger jets.
Flight CI611 crashed Saturday about 20 nautical miles north of
Taiwan's Penghu island chain, also known as the Pescadores. The
islands are about 30 miles off Taiwan's western coast.
Search teams believe they picked up the black box's beacon signal
in the area and were confident it would be recovered soon, official
said.
Sunday's rough seas hindered the search for bodies and debris.
Swells up to 10 feet tossed around fishing boats and coast guard
ships cruising around the crash site. There was a rainbow-colored
glimmer on the sea from an oily slick as big as a football
field.
Chang Shing-yeu, director of a coast guard helicopter squadron,
said pilots spotted the plane's cabin door, a wheel and what
appeared to be part of the plane's belly.
From the air, Chang said, "The long oil slick and floating debris
looked just like an airport runway on the water."
Soldiers unloaded corpses in gray body bags from a large coast
guard vessel at a port in northern Penghu. Nearby, 40 rescue
workers in red suits unpacked high-tech search equipment, including
remote-controlled underwater cameras. Others laid out lines of
thick rope for pulling up wreckage.
Troops placed debris, including seats and a restroom sink, in a
roped-off area.
The passengers included 190 from Taiwan, 14 people from Macao and
Hong Kong, nine mainland citizens, one Singaporean and one Swiss
citizen.
China Airlines planned to retire the Boeing 747-200 jet next month
and deliver it to the small regional carrier Orient Thai Airline,
which already paid for it, China Airlines said.
China Airlines said the plane was well-maintained and was
completely overhauled last year.
The airline's last fatal crash was in 1999, when a jet flipped over
and burst into flames during a crash landing in Hong Kong, killing
three people.
The company published a half-page apology in Taiwan's major
Chinese-language papers on Sunday.
The apology, signed by the company's chairman, Y.L. Lee, said, "We
want to express our deepest regrets to the victims' families and
the public. We will do our best to help the families to
recover."
But one victim's relative would not accept the apology. The man,
who would not give his name, went to Penghu to collect his
relative's remains and joined other relatives who were sobbing and
praying along the island's coast.
Sitting on a park bench, the man looked at the water and yelled,
"I'll never fly China Airlines again!"
(China
Daily May 27, 2002)