Rushing to Die: The crash of Singapore Airlines flight 006 - Part One, Airline Safety, Airline crashes
SQ will be forever tarnished by SQ006. But it may be said that is was not completely SQ's fault too. The closed runway should not have been used as a taxiway for part of it, at all. To avoid confusion.
The SQ pilots if I recall said the taxiway was lit up like a runway, but the TPE authorities said the active was lit up like a Christmas tree and should not have been missed.
It was a sad situation and made up of several holes lining up in the swiss cheese.
1. Night time, storm coming literally within the hour (TPE was due to shut down very soon when SQ006 departed). The anxiety this causes for flight crew.
2. TPE had no ground radar. The coming storm already reduced visibility to the point that the tower could not see SQ006 taxiing.
3. SQ006 should have but did not request a "follow me" truck.
4. IT was a relatively "easy" mistake to make turning from the taxiway onto the closed runway instead of going just a bit further to the active and then making a right hand turn. It should not have happened but a mistake that has happened before and will happen again, taking off from the wrong runway or taxiway.
5. The construction equipment was very far down the runway and could not be seen in the rain and darkness when they started their takeoff roll and was too late to avoid when they did see it.
Taiwan released the flight crew with the Singapore government's promise that they will return for the trial after keeping them on the island for several days. Pilots worldwide were going to boycott flying to TPE if the Taiwan authorities sentenced the pilots to jail as was the talk then.
They were not jailed and free to go after the trial. SQ initially, just when the accident happened came on to say it was their plane and their pilots and accepted at least some blame. Later they strongly contested the findings of the final report, blaming the airport more then accepting that their crew made a fatal error.
The airline itself is to blame for putting pressure on flight crews to press on even in the face of a huge storm coming and the edge of it had already arrived. This pressure was implied not stated as fact.
TPE was wrong to NOT shut down earlier. It generally shuts down for major storms. It was also wrong to use the closed runway as a taxiway for part of it. Leads to confusion.
IIRC the Captain and co-pilot of SQ006 never flew again. And the closed runway later became an active TAXIWAY.
Changes were made to not repeat this accident. SQ doesn't fly this route anymore either (SIN - TPE - LAX).
One of my best friend's best friend was on this flight and did not survive.
An account from someone who had a relative onboard :
http://bohtong.com/sq006-the-last-flight-from-taipei/