A Taiwanese lab yesterday started tests to confirm whether the edge lights of the runway on which Singapore Airlines flight SQ006 crashed in October were turned on when the plane had the accident.
The tests have been commissioned by the Aviation Safety Council (ASC,
These lights should have been switched off as the runway no longer serves as a runway for takeoff, the aviation safety council said.
The runway was, and remains, partially closed for repair, serving only as a taxiway.
The Boeing 747-400 jetliner crashed at CKS International Airport on Oct. 31 in stormy weather. The ill-fated flight, whose pilots had wrongly attempted to take off on runway 5R, smashed into construction machinery and burst into flames.
Eighty-three of the 179 people on board the airliner were killed. Local prosecutors have barred the three pilots of the jetliner from leaving Taiwan pending investigations and have not ruled out prosecuting them.
The ASC yesterday sent two wires from damaged edge lights of runway 5R which were found at the crash scene to Chung-shan Institute of Science and Technology (
They are to undergo laboratory tests there which it is hoped will establish whether the lights were on when the accident took place, a sign that might have led the pilots to mistake the runway as the take-off runway.
These edge lights are identical to those of runway 5L, the parallel runway that the pilots should have taken.
The accident investigators have received conflicting information about the condition of these edge lights at the time of the accident.
Confirming whether the edge lights of runway 5R were off during the accident is crucial to understanding the "error chain" that led to the accident, investigators said. "There is no single cause in a public transportation accident," said Yong Kay (戎凱), managing director of the ASC.
Some Singaporeans have accused the Taiwanese authorities of trying to place the blame for the accident solely on the pilots.
Yong said it will take two to three weeks to establish the result of the laboratory test. The ASC will then send the wire samples to Australia for a confirmation test.
The Singaporean authorities, he said, have asked for a further, additional confirmation to ensure that the test result is unbiased.
The ASC is also to contact Canadian experts today to investigate the possibility of conducting a third test on the wires there.
All currently available factual information relating to the accident will be revealed by the ASCl tomorrow in accordance with International Civil Aviation Organization rules. The council estimates that it has so far collected over 50 percent of the factual information it requires to complete the investigation.
Preparation of a factual report, expected to take over a month, will begin by the end of December when the collection of factual information is complete. An analysis of related information will begin in February.
The factual report will form part of the ASC's final report on its investigation into the crash, which will also include a list of all possible causes of the crash and recommendations for aviation safety.
Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration has postponed its international aviation safety audit of Taiwan from this month to February.
The move is to spare local aviation authorities from the burden of the audit while they continue to handle the aftermath of the air crash, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (
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