Wreckage salvaged from a China Airlines plane which crashed into the Taiwan Strait in May is insufficient to determine the cause the crash, the Aviation Safety Council (ASC) said yesterday.
ASC officials said that the professional salvage operations drew to a close Sunday and that around 75 percent of the fuselage has been salvaged, including the nose gear, engine and landing gear.
They said, however, that only about 45 percent of the fuselage between the fourth cabin door and the fifth cabin door, which is believed to provide the most clues, has been retrieved.
The officials said that the ASC, which is responsible for the investigation of the plane crash, will hire six fishing boats to use trawler nets to continue to retrieve more wreckage to help determine the cause of the crash.
The plane disintegrated in mid-air 30 minutes after taking off from CKS International Airport on May 25, killing all 225 aboard.
The military and the Coast Guard Administration helped with wreckage salvaging and the recovery of victims during the first three weeks. A foreign professional salvaging company joined in for the operations in the latter part of June.
Investigators have ruled out human error and the two "black boxes," the cabin voice recorder and the flight data recorder, which were retrieved have shed little light on the cause of the crash.
The fuselage shows signs of metal fatigue, but ASC officials stressed that this is only a fact, and is not the cause of the crash. They are hoping to retrieve more fuselage wreckage to help in the investigation.
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