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`Suspicious' wreckage eyed in crash

Two months after China Airlines' flight CI611 mysteriously broke up in midair, killing 225 passengers and crew, investigators said yesterday that certain "suspicious" pieces of wreckage are undergoing further analysis.

"Conducting further analysis of the retrieved parts that appear suspicious regarding the plane's structure is normal investigative procedure, especially when we are still gathering factual information [about the accident]," Tracy Jen (任靜怡), spokeswoman for the Cabinet's Aviation Safety Council, told the Taipei Times.

Jen, however, declined to elaborate about what "suspicious" about the wreckage in question.

Jen said 37 pieces of wreckage would be sent to laboratories of the Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology (中科院), the US National Transportation Safety Board and Boeing Company.

A report in yesterday's Washington Post, citing an anonymous source, said that investigators have uncovered the first physical evidence that points to a possible cause of the accident -- fatigue cracks in the plane's rear fuselage, where the airliner was repaired after a "tail strike" 22 years ago.

A "tail strike" occurs when the tail of an aircraft scrapes along the runway when taking off too steeply.

Jen initially declined to make any comment on the Post report, but later said the wreckage the report refers to is among the pieces being sent for further analysis.

"Everything awaits the result of the analysis," she said.

According to Hsu Yung-hao (徐永浩), director of the flight standard division of the Civil Aeronautics Administration, investigators may have been prompted by the airliner's repair log to pay particular attention to the plane's rear section.

However, he told the Taipei Times that "the plane should have undergone inspection, especially on the place that had been repaired, before each flight mission."

"But anything is possible," he said.

China Airlines declined to comment on the report yesterday.
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