A China Airlines Co (華航) flight to San Francisco was forced to turn back to Chiang Kai Shek Interna-tional Airport late Thursday night after crew detected smoke streaming from one of its engines, a company executive said yesterday.
The incident comes just over a week after one of the airline's cargo planes made an emergency landing in Pakistan due to faulty equipment but yet amid words of praise for the company's progress on air safety from the government.
No crew or passengers were hurt in either incident.
Samson Yeh (
Upon inspection the crew spotted white smoke streaming from the engine of the Boeing 747-400.
"The moment the visual confirmation of the smoke was made, the crew initiated an engine shutdown, dumped fuel and returned to CKS to land," Yeh said.
Yeh said the crew did not declare an emergency as flying on three engines is considered "normal procedure" under such conditions.
The airplane, which was carrying around 300 people, landed safely at around midnight, said Yeh, who added that a reason for the high oil burn rate and smoke was yet to be determined and inspections were ongoing.
The passengers stayed over night at an airport hotel and departed yesterday morning at around 10am for San Francisco aboard another China Airlines flight, said company executives.
This incident follows the aborted flight of a China Airlines Boeing 747-400 cargo freighter on Aug. 13, when a faulty smoke detector indicated smoke in the craft's main cargo deck, Yeh said.
The flight, from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emigrates to Bangkok, Thailand was forced to make an emergency landing at Karachi international airport, where once on the ground the crew discovered there was in fact no smoke and that the gauge was faulty, Yeh said.
Since 1994, a total of 463 passengers and crew have died in China Airlines' crashes.
The most recent incident was in August 1999 when an MD-11 flipped on landing at Hong Kong's Chep Lap Kok International Airport, killing three passengers.
Since a management reshuffle in the middle of last year following a change in government administration -- which holds a 71-percent stake in the company -- the company has made improving its flight safety a priority.
New China Airlines CEO Christine Tsung (
And despite the latest incidents, Kay Yong (戎凱) managing director of the Cabinet-level Aviation Safety Council which oversees investigations into aviation incidents, believes the new management at the airline has made progress.
"CAL is trying very, very hard and certainly they are making tremendous progress compared to three years ago," he said.
Yong said the company is now much more willing to share information on airline incidents, which is required and generally acknowledged as necessary by foreign regulatory bodies to help prevent serious accidents.
Yong has also detected a significant change in attitude among the air crew towards embracing the concept of air safety and shrugging off the so-called cowboy mentality of the many former air force fighter pilots China Airlines employs.
"Military aviation does have different requirements to civil aviation, so when pilots make the transition they do have a lot of difficulties ... but for the past two to three years we have seen a tremendous transition from that attitude," Yong said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last