The crash yesterday of a China Airlines Co (
The worst crash in the airline's history was the Nagoya crash on Apr. 26, 1994, in which 264 people on board were killed and 11 people on the ground injured.
A French-made Airbus A300-600R burst into flames at Nagoya International Airport when it stalled on its approach and crashed short of the runway.
The second worst crash until yesterday was on Feb. 16, 1998, when another A300-600R crashed into a residential area during its second landing attempt at the CKS International Airport (
The crash, which occurred at night, with visibility further reduced by rain and fog, killed the 197 people on board and seven on the ground.
Yesterday's flight CI-611 was scheduled to carry 225 people from Taipei to Hong Kong. At press time, more than 100 bodies had been found in the Taiwan Strait near Penghu, and rescue crews were still searching for survivors.
"We will definitely try our best to find more survivors, and we are hopeful," a spokesman at China Airlines who wished to remain anonymous said. "We are hoping it will not become the second worst crash in our history."
The spokesman said that the only 747-200 jumbo jetliner in the company's fleet had passed a detailed security check on Nov. 25 last year and another two minor checks on May 4.
"It was the only and last 747-200 we had. In the meantime, we will have to make further investigations before we can confirm the cause of the crash," he said. "However, technical problems probably aren't involved in this tragedy."
China Airlines' first crash occurred on Feb. 2, 1969, when a domestic DC-3 rammed into mountains in adverse weather conditions in Taitung, killing 24 people on board.
On Nov. 4, 1993, another Boeing 747-400 overshot the runway when landing at Hong Kong International Airport and ended up in the sea. No one was killed but 23 people on board were injured.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,