A man and a woman were killed and 208 injured when a Taiwanese passenger jet en route from Bangkok to Taipei crash-landed, overturned and burst into flames during a tropical storm at Hong Kong airport yesterday evening.
A wing of the China Airlines Boeing MD-11 tri-jet touched the tarmac as it made a scheduled landing at 6.45 p.m. (10.45 GMT) on the southern runway, and the wide-bodied aircraft flipped over, airport officials said.
There were 315 people on board - 300 passengers and 15 crew. Passengers hung upside down in their seats, some for as long as 45 minutes, before the flames were brought under control and rescuers began bringing them out. Some 101 people walked away from the crash unscathed but of the 208 casualties taken away in a fleet of ambulances to hospital many were seriously injured.
The accident happened as typhoon Sam lashed Hong Kong, disrupting other flight schedules and causing ferries and bus schedules to be cancelled. Early yesterday the Hong Kong Observatory hoisted a No. 8 cyclone warning signal, which indicates winds with mean speeds of 63 to 117 k.m.h. (39 to 73 m.p.h.) were expected. Gusts of up to 130 k.m.h (81) were reported during the afternoon.
The typhoon was weakening at the time of the crash and had been downgraded to a severe tropical storm. The incident raises serious questions about the viability of Hong Kong's new $20 billion Chek Lap Kok Airport, which has been criticised by pilots for its susceptibility to wind-shear since it opened last year.
China Air has one of the world's worst records for air disasters. Last year some Taiwanese lawmakers urged that the airline be shut down after an Airbus crash on February 16th at Taipei's international airport which killed 202 people, including Taiwan's central bank governor and other top finance officials.
Local television in Hong Kong last night showed dazed passengers, mostly Taiwan citizens, being brought on stretchers to hospitals.
First reports yesterday quoted a China Air spokesman as saying the pilot had radioed Hong Kong air traffic controllers to report a cabin fire and request an emergency landing, and that four flight crew were seriously injured.
This is the first major incident at Hong Kong airport, which is located on Lantau Island, about 25km (15 miles) west of central Hong Kong, since it was opened by China's President Jiang Zemin in July 1998.
"I saw a huge fireball and heard a loud boom," one eyewitness who had disembarked another flight at the airport told reporters. The airport was closed to all air traffic for six hours following the incident and the railway link to Hong Kong's central business district also was shut down.