Investigators and airline executives from Singapore yesterday slammed the Taiwan report on the factors causing the crash of Singapore Airlines flight SQ006, saying the final report was incomplete and biased against the pilots of the ill-fated flight.
In the report released yesterday by Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council (ASC) , investigators concluded that the pilot's error in identifying the wrong runway -- and then attempting to take off from it -- was the probable cause of the accident which claimed 83 lives in October 2000.
Flight SQ006 exploded into a fireball and broke into pieces when it struck construction equipment on runway 05R -- which had been closed for repairs -- during takeoff amid a fierce typhoon at Chiang Kai Shek International Airport.
"The crew's attention was focused on the storm, low visibility and strong crosswinds, said Kay Yong (
Yong said that, in their haste to take off before the weather got worse, the pilots of the Boeing 747-400 did not properly verify they were on the correct runway or thoroughly consult airport charts and a written notification that the runway they used, was partially blocked.
"The flight crew did not use all the resources available to them," Yong said.
However, the Singaporean government and executives from the airline took a somewhat divergent view of events, claiming that lax operations at CKS airport misled the aircraft's pilots, but that Taiwan investigators had played down the airport's deficiencies.
A statement released by the Singapore Ministry of Transport said its investigation team "... finds the ASC final report incomplete, as it does not present a full account of accident... [and] downplays significant systemic factors which contributed to accident such as deficiencies in CKS airport."
The ministry claimed that many vital guidance systems at the airport do not conform to international norms including poor lighting, signage and markings of runways and taxiways -- as well as no physical barriers at the start of the closed runway 05R.
"These key factors are glossed over in the ASC's analysis of the accident," said the ministry, which released a separate 107-page report which concluded that the crash was caused by "a failure of the aviation system." In its 508-page report, the ASC categorizes pilot errors as the "probable causes" of the accident while assigning "factors related to risk" to deficiencies at CKS.
Cheong Choong Kong, deputy chairman and CEO of Singapore Airlines, found serious fault with Taiwan's report on the causes of the accident, saying that the disparity in the ASC's attributing probable cause to pilot error doesn't give due weight to CKS's significant role in the tragedy.
"There is no disputing the fact that our pilot took off from the wrong runway, but what could have led them to take off from the wrong runway? These are experienced pilots, pilots with thousands of hours of flight time -- they have a clean record, " said Cheong via videoconference from Singapore.
"We believe the deficiencies in the lightning system, in the signage and air traffic control clearance all these misled our pilots into taking off from the wrong runaway," he said.
Cheong said that one of the major deficiencies contributing to the accident was the fact that runway 05R was prominently lit with lights spaced closely together and marked as if it was operational.
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