Tuesday, August 21, 2007
'Total Chaos' On Plane In Japan
10 Minutes of Panic Before All
Escaped
By Blaine Harden
The Washington (DC) Post
TOKYO, --
Passengers slid down escape chutes and sprinted away from a smoking Taiwanese
airliner moments before it exploded in flames Monday near an airport terminal on
the Japanese island of Okinawa.
A crew member of the Boeing 737-800,
operated by Taiwan-based China Airlines, could be seen on video jumping from a
cockpit window seconds after the explosion.
Despite what passengers
described as 10 minutes of panic and terror inside the plane before they found
the emergency slides, none of the 165 people aboard was killed or seriously
injured, China Airlines said.
"When the smoke started, people were just
pushing and shoving each other," an unidentified female Taiwanese passenger told
reporters. "It was total chaos."
Officials said the explosion may have
been caused by a fuel leak. China Airlines, which quickly grounded its fleet of
737-800 aircraft, has had four serious accidents in the past 13
years.
Carrying mostly vacationers to what has become a popular beach
resort, Monday's flight from Taipei landed normally at the Naha Airport in
Okinawa, passengers said.
"Everything was working according to normal
procedure. There was nothing wrong during the flight," China Airlines spokesman
Johnson Sun told reporters. He said the plane, with 157 passengers and a crew of
eight, had just received its scheduled maintenance.
The pilot, Capt. Yu
Chien-Kuo, 48, had been flying 737-800s for the airline for six years. He gave
air traffic controllers no report suggesting anything was wrong as the plane
came in to land, Japanese Transport Ministry official Akihiko Tamura told
reporters. Nor did the pilot call in a problem as the plane stopped near the
terminal to unload passengers.
As the jet parked, passengers said, the
left engine began smoking, followed by the right one. A statement on the
airline's Web site said the plane caught fire while taxiing.
Tamura said
the fire started "when the left engine exploded a minute after the aircraft
entered the parking spot." Another Japanese transportation official told
reporters that initial reports from ground personnel said a fuel leak from the
right engine could have led to the explosions.
Some passengers told
reporters that they saw the danger before the aircraft crew. "The passengers saw
the smoke first, and they began to yell and demand that the doors be opened,"
said a passenger who gave his surname as Tsang and identified himself as a guide
for Taipei's Southeast Tours.
Video shot from the terminal building
showed passengers sliding down emergency chutes and running from the smoking
aircraft. It erupted in a ball of flames just as the last of the passengers had
managed to get clear.
A passenger who gave only his surname, Chen, told
reporters he started running the moment he slid off the plane.
"I ran so
hard my sock tore," he said. "I think I got my life back."
Click or paste
the link to view the video:
China Airlines Jet Bursts Into Flames
A
737 jet landing in Okinawa exploded after a fire started in one of its engines.
No injuries were reported from the blaze.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2007/08/20/VI2007082001109.html