Nando Times

'Bodies just began to fall out' of Singapore jet

By MARCOS CALO MEDINA, Associated Press

TAOYUAN, Taiwan (November 8, 2000 12:55 a.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - One week after the deadly crash of a Singapore Airlines jetliner, the airport runway remains an eerie memorial: melted suitcases, crumpled shirts, a Hello Kitty doll, scattered pink and purple socks - and a mangled construction crane.

Investigators confirmed for the first time Tuesday that it was the crane that ripped open the belly of the jumbo jet as it hurtled down the wrong runway. Eighty-two people died in the fiery takeoff attempt.

"Bodies just began to fall out," David Lee, an investigator with Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council, told reporters at Chiang Kai-shek Airport during the first close public look at the runway wreckage.

Last week, when crash experts disclosed the contents of the 'black box' cockpit recorder of Flight SQ006, they would only confirm that the pilot picked the wrong runway and that there was a series of collisions as the plane sped down the airstrip.

On Tuesday, investigators offered the most detailed account yet of the crash. Seconds after the jet began its takeoff, a front wheel hit a concrete barrier about 4,950 feet down the runway. Then the plane slammed into a crane that peeled open its underside, said Lee.

Parts of Singapore Airlines' trademark blue and yellow metal were twisted around the body of a flipped-over crane. Another nearby crane was badly battered.

Bouquets of lilies and pictures of the dead lay on the charred remains of the plane, where many bodies were found. Musical scores apparently left by passengers littered the runway and a makeshift Buddhist altar with incense and plates of apples and pears was arranged near the plane's nose.

In the plane's tail section - which Lee said was the least damaged - magazines and candies were strewn on the soiled purple seats. The ceiling and overhead compartments had collapsed, revealing air pipes and electrical cables. Some seats dangled out of the plane in a section split from the rest of the jetliner.

The major question experts are trying to answer is why the plane's pilot thought he was on the correct runway.

Kay Yong, managing director of the Aviation Safety Council, said the probe is focusing on whether the closed runway - which was parallel to the plane's assigned runway - was improperly lit, inviting the pilot to make the fatal choice Oct. 31 during a storm brought by an approaching typhoon.

Investigators have heard conflicting reports about whether the lights along the side of the closed runway were on, indicating to the pilot that he could use the strip, Yong said.

Yong said that seconds after the crash, an airport maintenance vehicle requested that the air traffic control tower turn on the runway lights. The request, however, did not specify which of the two runways had their lights switched off, he said.

"We cannot give any direct probable cause. The final report might take as much as one year," Yong said at a news conference at the airport in this suburb of the capital, Taipei.

Yong also said visibility was 2,950 feet at the time of the crash - better than the original estimate of 1,640 feet. But even then, the pilot would not have been able to see the first concrete block, which was 4,921 feet from the runway's entrance, Yong said.

Inspection of the wreckage indicated nothing was technically wrong with the plane, he said.

Aviation safety officials from the United States and representatives from Singapore Airlines were picking through the debris Tuesday. They declined to comment.

Taiwan authorities ordered the pilot and two co-pilots to remain in Taiwan indefinitely to help with the investigation, Singapore Airlines said. Their movements have not been restricted and their passports have not been confiscated, the airline said.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), November 08, 2000

Answers

Straits Times

New map may have confused the pilot

By LESLIE KOH

THE pilot of SQ 006 may have been following a new map issued by the Taipei airport when he made that fatal first right turn into the closed 05R runway.

The chart depicting 05R as a taxiway may have confused him, making him think the runway he turned into was the correct 05L.

This chart, effective from Nov 1, does not show 05R as a runway.

In fact, pilots said, 05R was relabelled a taxiway in an aeronautical information supplement issued recently by Taiwan's Civil Aeronautics Administration.

This shows only runway 05L at the northern flank.

But the airport had not removed the old markings from the old 05R runway.

Pilots are speculating that when Captain Foong Chee Kong turned into 05R, the only warning that it was a taxiway, and not runway 05L, in front of him would have been its central row of green lights.

Working runways have white lights running down the centre and both edges, while taxiways have green lights down the middle.

Poor visibility might have made it hard for Capt Foong to tell the difference. If the edge lights on 05R were on, he would hardly have doubted that he was on the correct 05L runway.

The new chart was to have taken effect from 5 pm GMT on Nov 1 (1 am on Nov 2 in Taiwan). Had Capt Foong used it too early? SQ 006 crashed on Oct 31.

One pilot said a Notice To Airmen (Notam) he got on Nov 1 refers to 05R although a previous chart had redesignated it as taxiway NC. A later Notam said the redesignation would be postponed.

A Bangkok-based captain said the airport should have added a warning to avoid 05R and added that he found the Taiwanese Notams hard to understand.

The International Herald Tribune yesterday quoted several pilots calling 05R's marking and lighting a potential hazard that some had tried to warn the airport of for many years.

One said: ""This trap was set a decade ago. This accident was going to happen some dark and rainy night.''

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), November 08, 2000.