Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 27, 1994 TAG: 9404270109
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NAGOYA, JAPAN LENGTH: Medium
The crash of the China Airlines A300-600R Airbus was Japan's second worst aviation disaster.
Minutes before the crash, pilot Wang Lo-chi radioed that he would abandon his landing attempt and try again, a Transport Ministry official said. The pilot gave no reason.
Only one survivor, a Philippine citizen, was known to have been able to speak after the crash. Sylvanie Detonio was quoted by Fuji TV as saying passengers received no warning that the plane was in trouble.
Flight 140 carried 256 passengers, including two infants - both killed - and 15 crew, bound from Taipei, Taiwan, to Nagoya. Most were from Japan or Taiwan.
The survivors, who included a 3-year-old boy, were critically injured and were hospitalized. Officials said a Filipino, two Taiwanese and seven Japanese survived.
Witnesses told the Japan Broadcasting Corp. that the plane seemed to be trying to climb out of an aborted landing approach when its right wing hit the ground and the plane came down nose first and exploded.
Chang Tai-hsih, chief of the China Airlines branch in Japan, and others discounted reports of engine trouble in Taipei before the 1,180-mile flight to Nagoya.
About 3,000 police, firefighters and troops cautiously lifted wreckage with cranes and searched by hand for bodies.
``When I got to the plane, it looked so bad that I thought everyone must have died. But then I heard a woman calling in pain for help and I called for a stretcher and we rescued her,'' said Takahide Miyagi, an assistant fire chief.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB