`Black Monday' highlights China's aviation woes
`Black Monday' highlights China's aviation woes
By Philippe Massonnet
BEIJING (AFP): A "Black Monday" that within hours saw China's worst airliner disaster followed by the new hijacking of a domestic flight to Taiwan cruelly expose the problems riddling the country's aviation industry.
The irony is that the Civil Air Administration of China (CAAC) had sternly declared 1994 to be "China's Safety Year" after 400 people were killed in air crashes and 10 planes were hijacked in the previous two years.
Shortly after takeoff early Monday, a China Northwest Airlines Tupolev-154 plane fell out of the sky about 30 kilometers (18 miles) southeast of the central city Xian, a popular tourist destination.
The crash killed all 160 people on board, including 14 crew and 13 foreigners.
A few hours later, a China Southern Airlines Boeing 737 on a domestic flight from the southeastern city of Fuzhou to the southern city of Guangzhou was hijacked to Taiwan by a man armed with a knife and a fake bomb.
It was the second hijacking of a Chinese airliner to Taiwan this year and the twelfth over the past 12 months.
"Air traffic is growing too fast for technical and human resources, and all the new companies think about nothing except making as much profit as possible, like everybody else in China," a western expert on China's aviation industry said here.
The gold rush is reflected in growth figures, which show Chinese airlines flew 15.28 million domestic passengers in the first five months of the year -- up 19.2 percent compared to the same period in 1993.
Since the CAAC's monopoly over the airline industry was ended five years ago, 28 regional and local airline companies have been spawned, many of which were created in a hurry, are ill-equipped and have poorly-trained personnel in the air and on the ground.
China Northwest Airlines, which lost one of its aircraft in an accident last July that killed 59, has a fleet mainly comprising antiquated Soviet- and Chinese-made planes. The company had 13 Tupolev-154s, three Antonov-24s and seven Yun-7 planes out of a total of 40 aircraft as at the end of 1993.
The cause of the Xian plane crash was being probed Tuesday, but industry experts speculate it may have been linked to a problem with the plane's automatic pilot.
But decrepit or ill-maintained equipment does not in itself explain the crisis now faced by China's aviation industry. In November 1992, a recently-built Boeing 737 crashed near the southern city of Guilin, killing 141 people.
Chinese airline companies have made efforts to improve the quality of their fleets and are acquiring new models made by U.S.-based Boeing and European-based Airbus aircraft manufacturers.
"Air traffic control also poses a serious problem," the western expert said. "Communications between airports, control towers and planes are all bad."
CAAC deputy director Wang Xijue has said the shortage of pilots is also a reason for the rise in accidents.
"One hundred and fifty new pilots qualify each year but 300 are needed to meet demand and safety levels," he said.
"Young pilots are entrusted with big planes very quickly, and their lack of experience -- especially in emergencies -- has led to numerous accidents," Wang added.
On the ground, the security situation is also worrying, despite repeated directives from the authorities, as Monday's hijacking of the China Southern Airlines demonstrated.
Agents for foreign airlines working in Chinese airports confirm an abundance of security problems.
Training received by airport personnel in "anti-hijacking tactics" has failed to improve the situation, they said.