Investigators Exclude Weather, Control Tower Factors in CAL Plane Crash

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, May 29, 2002

Investigators Exclude Weather, Control Tower Factors in CAL Plane Crash

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Aviation experts completed Tuesday an initial investigation into the crash of Taiwan China Airlines Flight CI611 and ruled out weather or control tower factors as reasons causing the aircraft to disintegrate in midair, according to news from Taiwan.

A total of 52 aviation experts, including nine from the Boeing Company, Pratt and Whitney, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, convened an organization meeting Tuesday and categorically excluded weather or control tower factors.

It was reported that the experts examined meteorological data from weather departments in Taiwan and Japan and found that the high-altitude weather conditions above central Taiwan and the offshore area of Penghu were fine and clear between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. last Saturday when the crash occurred.

During that time, the wind speed at 35,000 feet was not strong, averaging between 70-75 kilometers per hour and there was neither icing nor turbulence in the crash area.

In addition, flight CI611 is believed to have broken up at a height of 35,000 feet and plunged into the sea near Penghu, so the disintegration of the plane did not occur when it was climbing, during which it needed the guidance of controllers on the ground.

It was also reported that only about 0.1 percent of the crashed airplane's wreckage had been retrieved so far and searchers have not found the aircraft's black boxes, making it tremendously difficult for the investigators to determine why exactly the airliner broke up in midair.

Experts said the flight recorders are designed to emit a beacon for 30 days in the wake of a crash or any other accident and if the black boxes are not discovered in this period, hopes of ever finding them will be dim.

They also said fortunately the ocean currents in the Taiwan Strait near Penghu travel in a south-to-north direction, making it less likely that the black boxes would have sunk to a deeper part of the seabed, which would make it even more difficult to recover them.

The Hong Kong-bound CAL plane, with 225 people aboard, crashed into the sea off Penghu last Saturday afternoon, 30 minutes after taking off from Chiang Kai-shek International Airport.

Taiwan Air Crash

Accident:A China Airlines passenger jetliner with 206 passengers and 19 crew en route from Taipei to Hong Kong crashed into the Taiwan Straits off the island county of Penghu Saturday afternoon.

Rescue work: Taiwanese transportation authorities said that search vessels had found more than 100 bodies in the sea around 25 nautical miles north of Penghu where aChina Airlines jetliner crashed Saturday.

Condolences & external assistance: Soon after the crash, the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) sent a letter of condolences Saturday to the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) in Taiwan. China's Communications Ministry Sunday afternoon sent two powerful tugboats to help the rescue work in the vicinity of the crash site.

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