China Airlines Co (華航) executives will accompany officials from the Cabinet-level Aviation Safety Council to Anchorage, Alaska later this month to aid in the investigation involving a China Airlines aircraft during takeoff.
The US National Transport Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating the Jan. 27 incident involving China Airlines flight CI-011 from Anchorage bound for Taipei, when the aircraft took off from the wrong runway and grazed a snow berm during liftoff.
No one was hurt and the plane arrived safely in Taipei.
According to Kay Yong (戎凱), managing director of the safety council, the delegation -- which will also include officials from the Civil Aeronautics Administration -- will "conduct simulations of the incident, interview air traffic controllers and get a better understanding of the airport."
The delegation will depart Feb. 17 and stay five days, at the end of which it will deliver its findings to the NTSB, Yong said.
China Airlines executives initially described the incident as a "procedural error" and suspended the three-man flight crew pending the outcome of the investigation.
According to authorities, the plane -- which was carrying 250 passengers and crew -- was instructed to take off on a northbound runway at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, but instead lifted off from a westbound taxiway.
The safety council has reviewed the plane's black box and is expected to share its findings with the NTSB in Alaska.
China Airlines has one of the worst safety records in the world, recording fatalities in an August 1999 crash in Hong Kong and February 1998 in Taoyuan.
Meanwhile, preliminary findings by the safety council in a similar incident suggest that a Singapore Airlines flight also attempted to take off from the wrong runway at CKS International Airport in 1999 in an incident that killed 83 passengers.
That investigation has focused on whether the runway, which had been closed for repairs, was properly marked to indicate that it was out of use.
Media have speculated that the council's report, which is due for release in mid-April, has determined that runway lighting equipment was partly to blame for the accident.
Kay declined to comment on the reports.
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