Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 28, 1994 TAG: 9404280211
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NAGOYA, JAPAN LENGTH: Medium
No less incredible was that Seiji's 6-year-old brother, Yuji, and seven other passengers were alive Wednesday night, a day after the plane crashed and exploded into flames in a failed landing attempt at Nagoya airport, 170 miles west of Tokyo.
The Nakayama boys' Filipino mother, Daisy, was among the dead.
``I'm just happy that they're alive,'' said the boys' father, Tatsumi Nakayama, who was not aboard the plane. ``We lost their mother, but God spared me my boys.''
The doctor who operated on 3-year-old Seiji said he was in serious condition but was expected to live.
``It is a miracle that he was spared,'' said Dr. Toshio Sugiyama. ``If all goes well, he should be able to leave the hospital in about a month.''
China Airlines flew 334 relatives to Nagoya from Taiwan on Wednesday. Some relatives wept. Others held pictures of their loved ones.
The relatives faced the sad task of identifying victims laid out in a tent; because of the force of the impact and the intense fire that followed, only 123 bodies had been identified by Wednesday night.
Investigators were trying to learn why the twin-engine Airbus A300-600R crashed just off the runway, in the 10th-worst accident in aviation history, and the second worst in Japan.
Toshitaka Fujiwara, a Nagoya University aerospace engineering professor who joined investigators, said the rubble suggested the pilot might have pulled up too fast after deciding to abort the landing, causing the plane to stall and hit the ground tail first.
``There was hardly any wind, good visibility,'' he said. ``In general terms, the conditions were perfect for a landing, unless there was some factor we aren't aware of.''
Pilot Wang Lo-chi radioed moments before the crash that he would abandon his landing attempt and try again. He gave no reason.
Airport officials also began analyzing the flight recorder for clues, and police searched China Airlines' offices in Nagoya for any sign of possible negligence.
Flight 140 carried 256 passengers, including two infants, and 15 crew members on the two-hour, 45-minute trip from Taipei, Taiwan. Most of the passengers were from Japan or Taiwan, although 18 Philippine citizens also were aboard.
It was the fifth China Airlines crash since 1986. The crashes have killed 334 people in all.
Debris at the crash site indicated the tail, wheels and landing apparatus hit the ground, said the chief investigator for the Transport Ministry, Manabu Matsumoto. Earlier witness reports suggested the wheels were up.
All of the identified survivors were seated toward the front of the plane, and most were near windows, investigators said.
Five of the nine survivors were among those who traveled from Manila. They included the Nakayama boys, 22-year-old Sylanie Betonio, 3-year-old Hiroshi Villanueva and his mother Teresa Villanueva-Hasebe.
Two Taiwanese, Yang Shih-wei and Chu Wen-ching, also survived. The identity of the remaining two survivors had not been disclosed.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB