LSRPictures - China MD-11

Um avião da companhia China Airlines, com mais de 300 pessoas a bordo, pegou fogo neste domingo (22) quando tentava aterrizar no aeroporto de Hong Kong durante uma tormenta tropical.

De acordo com o canal de televisão, 2 passageiros morreram e cerca de 212 ficaram feridos.

Segundo uma estação de televisão local, cerca de 200 pessoas foram resgatadas. A emissora veiculou imagens do avião caído na pista de pouso, rodeado de caminhões dos bombeiros e ambulâncias.

Asv primeiras versões dadas do acidente diziam que o avião pousou como uma bola de fogo. O incêndio se instalou no avião do vôo 642 da China Airlines, que fazia o trecho Bangkok-Hong Kong, já no aeroporto Chek Lap Kok, disse um porta-voz do governo.

A nave, uma McDonnel Douglas MD-11, de propriedade de Taiwan, levava por volta de 350 pessoas a bordo.

As operações no aeroporto local estavam fora da normalidade devido a uma tormenta tropical que atinge a região.

© Associated Press 1999

August 23, 1999

HONG KONG -- Investigators in Hong Kong focused Monday on wind shear as a possible reason why a China Airlines jet flipped over and crashed into flames while landing in Hong Kong, killing two people.

Sixty people remained hospitalized late Monday following the Sunday crash of a plane from Taiwan's national airline. In addition to a Portuguese woman and a Taiwanese man who were killed, 212 were injured in an accident described by passengers as a horrific scene of fuel, fire and chaos.

Aviation officials said windshear -- a radical change in wind direction or speed -- should be investigated as a possible cause of the crash. Some questioned the pilot's decision to land in the midst of Typhoon Sam, which shut down ferries, most buses and some roads in Hong Kong.

The plane's Italian captain and its other flight crew have undergone preliminary interviews.

Officials denied that the location of Hong Kong's airport helped cause the accident.

Aviation experts have voiced concerns that the multi- billion-dollar Chek Lap Kok airport's location near 1,000-meter (3,300-foot) peaks on adjacent Lantau island could be prone to wind shear when air rushes over the peaks.

Strong cross-winds were buffeting the landing path, but they were blowing in from the northwest across the Pearl River Estuary -- not over the spine of Lantau island, C.Y. Lan, acting director of the Hong Kong Observatory told a news conference.

Weather had been a concern even before the flight left Bangkok, but the winds appeared to have calmed around Hong Kong, so the pilot decided to land, Taiwanese officials said.

Survivors describe crash

The Hong Kong government said 60 people were still hospitalized on Monday. Two were in critical condition and six in serious condition. The others were in stable or satisfactory condition.

Survivors said stunned passengers, some burned, screamed as they freed themselves from their seats and made their way out onto a runway drenched with jet fuel. They had to jump out of the doors because the emergency evacuation slides were useless with the jet upside down, its landing gear pointing to the sky.

"I was confused when the plane landed upside down. I didn't know which part was the front or the back of the plane," said Ricardo Andrade, a 20-year-old university student from Santarem, Portugal.

"People were burning -- their legs, arms, face," said Isabel Coelho, 58, a nurse from Lisbon, wearing a T-shirt bearing the Hong Kong airport's logo and wrapped in a hotel bathrobe

The Lusa Portuguese national news agency in Macau said 23 Portuguese were among the injured. There were 315 people on board the plane.

© CNN Interactive - The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

SOME MORE INFORMATION:

ACCIDENT DIGEST 99-25:

Please note this information is preliminary; new information will be added on the Aviation Safety Network at http://aviation-safety.net. The 1999 yearlist of accidents always contains the most recent information on each accident.

Date:	22.08.99
Time:	18.40h
Type:	McDonnell Douglas MD-11
Operator:	China Airlines
Registration:	B-150
C/n:	48468/518
Year built:	1992
Total airframe hrs:	30700 hours
Cycles:	5800 cycles
Crew:	0 fatalities / 15 on board
Passengers:	2 fatalities / 300 on board
Total:	2 fatalities / 315 on board
Location:	Hong Kong-Chek Lap Kok APT (Hong Kong)
Phase:	Landing
Nature:	Scheduled Passenger
Flight:	Bangkok IAP - Hong Kong (Flightnumber 642)

Remarks:
China Airlines Flight 642 (Bangkok-Hong Kong-Taipeh) was flown using an MD-11, registration B-150. Though operating under a China Airlines flightnumber, the aircraft was still in a Mandarin Airlines colour scheme. Weather at Hong Kong was very bad, because Tropical Storm Sam was in the area, causing winds of more than 100 km/h and conditions of windshear throughout the day. The aircraft was approaching Runway 25L when the right wing dipped about 15 degrees. the approach was continued and, just before touchdown, the wing dropped again, striking the runway. The plane then flipped upside down and slid down the runway in flames.

The crash sequence in this case bears similarities to the Fedex MD-11 which also flipped upside down on landing at Newark when a wing failed after striking the ground hard. On October 31, 1992 Dutch magazine Vrij Nederland reported about the possible problems regarding Douglas C-17 and MD-11 attachments of the wings to the fuselage. An American Airlines executive is said to have written a letter to McDonnell Douglas on September 28, 1992 (a month prior to the delivery of B-150)., saying he had serious doubts abut the safety of the MD-11 wing attachments.

The same plane, B-150, was involved in an incident on December 7, 1992 when it departed controlled flight 20mls E of Japan and sustained damage to the left and right outboard elevator skin assemblies, portions of which separated from the airplane. Probable cause was "the light control force characteristics of the MD-11 airplane in high altitude cruise flight. The upset was induced by a moderate lateral gust and was exacerbated by excessive control deflections. Contributing to the incident was a lack of pilot training specific to the recovery from high altitude, high speed upsets in the MD-11.".

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Source:
Mark Stephenson; Commercial Jet Aircraft Census by Bill Harms; CNN, BBC, South China Morning Post
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Background info:

AIRCRAFT PROFILE MD-11:
(http://www.boeing.com/commercial/md-11f/product.html)

produced: 178

hull-losses: 4 (totalling 234 fatalities)

Year built: 1992

engines: 3 Pratt&Whitney PW4460

Aircraft history:

30 OCT 1992 B-150 China Air Lines delivered

OPERATOR PROFILE CHINA AIR LINES

founded: 1959

internet site: http://www.china-airlines.com/index3e.htm

last China Air Lines loss: 16 FEB 1998 Airbus 300 B-1814 at Taipeh (197 fatalities plus 7 on the ground)

li> 13th fatal hull-loss; totalling 624 fatalities

16th hull-loss

COUNTRY PROFILE CHINA

last fatal airliner accident in China: 15 APR 1999 (MD-11 Korean Air at Shanghai , 7 cas.)

China is not yet rated in FAA's International Aviation Safety Assessment Program (IASA)

COUNTRY PROFILE TAIWAN:

Taiwan is rated Category 1 (Meets ICAO Standards) in FAA's International
Aviation Safety Assessment Program (IASA)

AIRPORT PROFILE HONG KONG:

first accident at Hong Kong International Airport - Chek Lap Kok

airport opened 1998

internet site: http://www.hkairport.com/

China Air Lines lost a Boeing 747 when it skidded off the wet runway at Hong Kong's former airport, Kai Tak, 4 Nov. 1993