Big difference between CI 611 and JAL 123 is the loss of radio contact. JAL crew was in contact with the tower all the time between pressure bulkhead rupture and impact. CI 611 first lost transponder contact, regained again but had no more radio contact, although time in trouble lasted several minutes.

I don't know about overseas, but this accident has received very little press in the U.S. I'm always very suspicious about that. It was buried on page 28 in the Dallas paper.
Someone probably shot the damned thing down by mistake.

Yeah the UK press seem to have let it go too. Plenty in the Taipei Times and other regionals as you would expect. Don't think it's anything sinister, just happened along way away for the average American reader.

Taipei Times is reporting that the recorders haven't been found yet. The signals that were detected may 'have been from ships in the vicinity'.

I agree. Perhaps if we were a lot closer to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, people would be taking more notice! When the games arrive, how many nations will allow 'The official Airline of the Games' to carry their competitors?

It will be interesting to see what CI does in the next few years to recover this loss of face before the Olympics.

PAXboy, you said:-
>>I agree. Perhaps if we were a lot closer to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, people would be taking more notice! When the games arrive, how many nations will allow 'The official Airline of the Games' to carry their competitors?

It will be interesting to see what CI does in the next few years to recover this loss of face before the Olympics.<<

Unless you know something that the rest of us don't, I think it unlikely that a Taiwan based airline would be the chosen carrier for a Chines mainland event like the Olympics.

I wish the badmouthing of airlines would cease until facts are known. I have many friends in China Airlines, and it is far from the gash outfit portrayed in many (racist?) posts:(

Let's get this right, shall we? We've got the same problem going on the thread about the recent B747 crash:

CA = Air China, the international carrier of the People's Republic of China (i.e. mainland China)

CI = China Airlines, the flag carrier of Taiwan, Republic of China.

They are different airlines, from different countries (at least as far as we in the West are concerned), and it's really not that hard!

The "Scraping, banging noise" is more likely the attempts by you and others to scrape the barrel to find minor events like this to batter airlines like China Airlines.

I don't work for them, and hold no particular brief for them, but I do wish that accidents and minor incidents like this tailstrike were not used by the ignorant to defame airline reputations.

If an inquiry finds fault, then OK, lets go for the jugular, but until then we should try to keep a sense of perspective. :(

Ok, I got another silly question. Roughly how long would a broken up B747 take to fall 30,000 feet to the sea?

Simon, I'd take a stab at approximately 2 to 2.5 minutes for a broken fuselage, although aerodynamic surfaces may take significantly longer due to lift forces and lower terminal velocity.

jeez you guys go on. Being serious for a minute, if anyone actually knows the 41 section mod. status, kindly say.

Thank you.

B = China!
 

Hey, J-Class: True. But the fact that Taiwan has B registry
blurs the distinction...so do the HKG carriers, as of course do the Mainland carriers, eh? :p

In answer to the general direction of this thread:

For what it's worth, Taiwan News and the only English language radio station in Taiwan is reporting that CI have so far refused to respond to a supposed statement by Orient Thai that they did not purchase the aircraft involved.

http://www.etaiwannews.com/Taiwan/20...1022635569.htm

Yesterday, the same radio station was quoting Orient Thai as saying that they had inspected the aircraft, but passed on its purchase due to "structural problems".

Obviously significant, if it's true.

The JAL incident was due to a faulty repair that had been carried out (by the manufacturer i think). I can't remember exactly but the aircraft was originally damaged by a tailstrike or something similar and a repair was carried out. Unfortunately, the repair method was not completed correctly (something along the lines of it needed double rivetting, but only a single row of rivets were put in a critical area). Eventually the repair failed with the previously mentioned results.

Rockdoctor:

In another report CI responded by saying that the deal had already being signed and some of the money already paid. The 747 will be turned over at June 20th to Orient Thai for about US$1.45 million but CI did not reveal any documents. :rolleyes:

Rockdoctor:

Very intriguing indeed..... If memory serves me well, it was within hours of CI611 crashing that HK TV stations were reporting the fact that the ill-fated a/c had been on its last commercial voyage for CI and had already been sold to Orient Thai.

It is thus surprising that Orient Thai are only now voicing their displeasure at being (wrongly, they say) identified as the buyer of the stricken a/c; you would think they would have tried to put the record straight (if that is indeed what is required) right away. For that matter, I haven't seen anything in the BKK Post or The Nation on this mysterious purchase/no-deal, either.

JAL 123 was a repair of the aft pressure bulkhead after a tailstrike, designed by boeing and performed by JAL mechanics. Unfortunately these guys confused a doubler with a shim on the drawings, resulting in the installation of a gap.filling piece of metal instead of a load carrying structural member.
The high local bending stresses resulting from this led to a very short fatigue life of the repair and to a complete failure of the pressurized fuselage.



something different :

TAIPEI (Reuters) - U.S. crash experts who took part in an investigation into a mid-air explosion of a Trans World Airlines plane in 1996 arrived in Taiwan on Tuesday to help find the cause of a China Airlines crash that killed 225 people.
[...]
Experts from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration will work with local officials to determine the cause of the disaster.
[...]
"They are familiar with deep sea and salvage operations and are experienced in analyzing wreckage," Kay Yong, Taiwan's top aviation safety official, told reporters.

once again, U.S. specialists investigate whether there might be a problem with an U.S. bestseller ....
gues what they will probably NOT find out ....

Probable accident cause will be pilots error of an untrained third world (= non U.S.) pilot from some unknown country somewhere in the far east or a shotdown by some communist red navy or an explosive device from irak (A nice opportunity to bomb these guys again)

Black boxes located
 

From Reuters, www.reuters.com

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan search teams have located the two "black box" recorders of a China Airlines Boeing 747-200 plane that crashed into the sea and killed 225 people, Transport Minister Lin Lin-san has said.

"We have located the position of the black boxes," Lin told a news conference on Wednesday. He did not say when they would begin operations to retrieve them.

On Sunday, officials said search teams had found signals from flight CI 611's cockpit voice and flight data recorders, but said later they turned out to be false.

The Taiwan carrier's Boeing 747-200 broke apart in mid-air on Saturday and plunged into the sea off western Taiwan shortly after taking off from Taipei for Hong Kong -- a scenario similar to the mid-air explosion of a Trans World Airlines 747-100 in 1996.

Is there a possibility this could be another TW800 situation. I thought that at a high altitude the fuel would not explode. Is this not correct?

Looking for some Classic Input
 

Most probably a TWA800 replay however,
There have been a few other theories put forward hereabouts

In a Classic, how easy would it be for this climb scenario

a. a depressurisation problem to go unnoticed in the climb?

alternately (and much more likely)

b. circa 15,000ft in climb, Pilots/FE stuff around trying to rectify a pressurisation -problem and forgetting to go on oxygen/descend, pass out (with cockpit door locked) due to a T.U.C. in the climb of about 2.5 minutes (only)

or

c. FE accidentally opens outflow valve(s) at height in climb whilst trouble-shooting (possibly trouble-shooting systematically a failure to pressurize that's actually due to a hull rupture). Pilots/FE pass out and aircraft enters powered spiral and breaks up. Does the Classic FE have exclusive access to pressurisation controls, cabin altimeter and outflow valve?

If the aircraft had not pressurised, crew passed out - and the aircraft continued climb on autopilot, what would happen at top of climb? Would the aircraft accelerate into a Mach comp encounter (FL330 to FL350, about M0.89 I'd guess) and then lose it laterally (Classic autopilot unable to cope with the non-symmetric lift, enters spiral and breaks up at about 30,000ft).
Just interested in this as a poss scenario because airline crews receive very little hypoxia or altitude chamber training (if any).
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It's equally possible that it was an altitude-triggered bomb in the cargo area (or a cargo-hold fire that could rage there undetected in an old 747). For Al Qaeda to get a bomb into some air-freighted shipment - too easy by far. If they wanted to throw international commerce into total disarray, what better way? How many pax would then be happy to travel on an airplane with unchecked airfreight containers? We know that no more than a few percent of all air-freight is ever checked and then go on to be held in secure areas. So what happens when airlines cannot make up for the lack of passengers by jamming holds full of opportunity air-freight? They go broke that much quicker. If I was advising Al Qaeda, that's what I'd be telling them to go for. They can get away with it about four or five times before public outrage would force a change in air-freighting security procedure. Imagine by how much air-freight costs would zoom if all air-freight had to be secured and guaranteed world-wide?
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Cargo door blow-out