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Fuel tank hole suspected in China Airlines blaze
2007-08-23
Black smoke rises from a China Airlines Boeing 737-800 as it explodes into flames at Naha Airport, Okinawa Prefecture (state), southern Japan, after arriving from Taiwan on Monday, Aug. 20, 2007. All 165 people aboard escaped alive, officials said and police said terrorism was not suspected. This photo was provided to Kyodo News from a passenger of the plane. |
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Investigators in Japan said Thursday they had found a hole in the fuel tank of a China Airlines plane that could explain why it burst into a fireball moments after landing. All 165 passengers and crew fled to safety, sliding down emergency chutes with minutes to spare as the Boeing 737-800 burst into fire and then exploded after landing Monday on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa. As investigators from Japan, Taiwan and the United States sifted through the jet's charred remains, the Japanese side said it discovered the fuel tank had been pierced. "We spotted a hole in a fuel tank," the transport ministry's investigative division said in a brief statement. "We suspect that oil leaked from this hole and spilled from the right wing to the outside." Chief investigator Kazushige Daiki pointed to a bolt that was part of the plane's structure. "It is believed that the hole was made as the tank was pierced by the bolt," Daiki told a news conference in Okinawa. Jiji Press reported that Boeing Co. issued a warning to airlines in 2006 to check for bolts piercing the tank as there were previous incidents. Officials at the Boeing offices in Tokyo and Hong Kong declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation into the China Airlines incident. The bolt came off from a movable flap on the front of the right wing called a slat, but the investigators could not find why the bolt came off, Japanese media reports said. Public broadcaster NHK said the hole measured two or three centimetres (0.8 to 1.2 inches) in diameter. Japanese media reports, quoting unnamed sources, had earlier said investigators were focusing on problems with the fuel piping connecting the engine with the wing -- not the fuel tank itself. Investigators have already recovered the plane's black box to analyse the pilots' conversations. China Airlines, Taiwan's leading carrier, has offered its apologies -- its chief executive flew immediately to Okinawa to console frightened tourists -- and announced compensation for passengers. The company, which has reported nine fatal accidents since 1970, has also painted over its logo on the wrecked aircraft in an apparent bid to minimise bad publicity. Its chairman, Philip Wei, also offered his resignation to the board. Wei "tendered his verbal resignation shortly after the incident in a bid to shoulder his responsibility," a China Airlines official told AFP in Taipei. Analysts said the incident is a setback for the airline, which launched a safety overhaul after February 1998 when a plane ploughed into a row of houses in Taipei, killing 196 passengers and crew and six people on the ground. In Tokyo, Ho Han-yeh, head of the airline's Japanese branch office, visited the transport ministry to apologise for the blaze, and later bowed deeply in front of reporters. "I apologise that the accident in Okinawa caused great concerns and worries to the passengers and their families," Ho said. He reiterated that the company had not found any problem with the aircraft in its annual inspection conducted last month. The carrier also Thursday announced a compensation plan for passengers on Monday's flight from Taipei to Okinawa, which is a popular tourist destination that lies closer to Taiwan than Tokyo. Business class passengers will be entitled to 80,000 Taiwan dollars (2,425 US) and those in economy to 65,000 dollars, company spokesman Johnson Sun said in Taipei.
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