Incident Report

Subject:                  China Airelines

Date of Email reporting Incident:   Tue 21/08/2007

Report Detail:

Police and aviation officials began examining the charred shell of a China Airlines jet in southern Japan on Tuesday, widening an investigation into why the plane exploded in flames just seconds after the 165 people aboard escaped. No one was seriously injured in Monday's accident at an airport on the island of Okinawa, which began when an engine caught fire as the Boeing 737-800 pulled into a parking spot after arriving from Taiwan. The probe has so far focused on reports from ground personnel that a fuel leak from the right engine could have led to the series of explosions. Boeing and the U.S. government have dispatched experts to help with the investigation.

Japanese aviation authorities and local police began inspecting the wreckage Tuesday morning, said Hiromi Tsurumi, spokesman for Japan's Aircraft and Railway Accidents Investigation Commission. "Authorities and police will jointly examine the plane's body and wings," Tsurumi said. "They will also pick up where they left off yesterday with interviewing the people involved." The 157 passengers and eight-member crew barely escaped with their lives. With the plane's wings and midsection ablaze, passengers escaped to the tarmac on inflated emergency chutes. Once the aircraft was empty, and just as the pilot was climbing out of a cockpit window, the jet erupted in a fireball that sent flames and an enormous cloud of black smoke billowing into the sky. Airport traffic controllers had received no report from the pilot indicating anything was wrong as the aircraft came in to land, Japanese Transport Ministry official Akihiko Tamura said. But as the aircraft came to a halt near the terminal, passengers said they noticed smoke coming from one of the engines and pushed and ran for the exits.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are sending investigators to examine the scene. Boeing is also dispatching an investigator in response to a request from the local aviation authorities, company spokesman Jim Proulx said. The plane had CFM 56 engines, made by CFM International, a joint venture between GE Aviation, a unit of General Electric Co., and France's Snecma, said Proulx. All 737-800s are built with the same engine. Taiwan's Civil Aeronautics Administration head Chang Kuo-cheng said authorities ordered China Airlines and its subsidiary Mandarin Airlines to ground their 13 other Boeing 737-800s pending a thorough inspection. Japan's Transport Ministry said Tuesday no problems were found in an emergency inspection of all Boeing 737-800 planes owned by Japanese airlines, as well as some 737-700 models that carry a similar engine.

Boeing has delivered more than 5,400 737s since the plane entered commercial service in 1968, the company's Proulx said. Airlines started flying the 737-800 in 1998, and as of July 31 there were about 1,220 flying worldwide, he added. A China Airlines 747 crashed in 2002 as it flew from Taipei to Hong Kong, leading to 225 deaths, and some 450 people died in China Airlines accidents during the 1990s