Investigators baffled over why CAL plane crashed

Investigators baffled over why CAL plane crashed

TAIPEI (AFP): Investigators were stymied yesterday over why a China Airlines Airbus crashed into a row of houses six days ago killing 202 people, despite the recovery of initial data from one of the plane's "black boxes."

Chief investigator Chang Kuo-cheng said an initial analysis of CAL Flight 676's last moments had been recovered from the cockpit voice recorder but he would not elaborate on any possible findings.

"The decoding of the cockpit voice recorder has been completed," Chang was quoted as saying on television late yesterday, adding that more information was expected with the decoding of other flight data.

"The flight data recorder is expected to be brought home on Feb. 25" from Australia where it was being analyzed, said Chang, deputy director of Taiwan's Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA).

Officials have said the information contained in the "black boxes" could prove crucial to explaining why the Airbus 300-600 jet, carrying 182 passengers and 14 crew, slammed into the row of houses at the edge of the airport and killed all on board as well as six on the ground.

Authorities have been tight-lipped about possible causes of the crash amid numerous rumors in the local press.

Chang angrily rejected speculation in a television report, which quoted unnamed sources at the plane's makers Airbus Industrie, that human error and the weather were to blame.

"Shortly before and after the crash, many other planes had landed there," Chang told AFP, dismissing speculation that heavy cloud cover at the time over Chiang Kai-shek International Airport was a factor.

"I wonder why they said that, before the investigation is complete," said Chang, adding "maybe to shrug off their responsibilities."

But Airbus Industrie regional communications manager Sean Lee told AFP from Singapore yesterday: "I think this has somehow gotten misreported. We can't speculate on causes."

Local television has been running computer simulations on the last moments of China Airlines (CAL) Flight 676, focusing on dialogue between captain Kang Lung-lin and the control tower as well as on witness reports that the plane was seen "veering left" during its final approach to land.

But analysts have called the simulations inaccurate and said they were probably based on an accident four years ago involving another CAL Airbus 300-600 which crashed at Japan's Nagoya airport, killing 264 people.

The television simulations show CAL Flight 676 on final approach veering off center, and then suddenly losing altitude with the plane's tail hitting the ground hard and its forward momentum slamming it into the houses.