Airline safety ratings? China Air

[preahko]

fascinating discussion board to read! I guess one had to figure such things existed, but I'd never seen it before. I love the one comment about how flying in/out of taiwan is only worth it for the pussy! obviously they get access to areas that the rest of us earthbound putzes don't, haha!

 

yes, I always prefer flying EVA over China. for some reason, I just feel overall better "served" on that airline. and I think it's so cute the way they do that whole applause thing for the flight attendants at the end of the flight.

 

though I have to say also, the only in-flight problem I've ever experienced in 40+ years of flying (heheh, that I knew about, anyway), was on an EVA flight to Seattle out of Taipei, we had to turn back to Taiwan when we reached Japan because of some sort of mechanical problem...though as I kept trying to reassure the nutso filipino catholic lady next to me, who was crossing herself and pouring out the hail marys a mile a minute, if it were a life-threatening emergency we would have landed in japan, not turned back and flown two hours back to taipei, haha!

 

anyway, I have a good friend who flies for bangkok air (cambodian, too, totally had to prove himself to all the racist thais, and did--now he TRAINS the arrogant fuckers! he's an ace, learned to fly ATRs in the soviet union and has seen everything flying for cambodian airlines, he's really made it with bangkok air, now he's the ATR guru for them...if you fly from BKK to siem reap on bangkok air, you could very likely be under his able care), I'll have to turn him on to that pilot's forum, if he doesn't already know about it...

 

preahko

[Whitney]

 

I wonder what the pilot and co-pilot were thinking and discussing after discovering this major mistake on the way to Taiwan Probably getting their resumes updated for new jobs

 

This happened in 2002. This China Airlines flight was headed to Taiwan from Anchorage. I copied and pasted a portion of the incident report in quotes below from:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0UBT/is_12_16/ai_84158863

 

"This is going to be seriously ugly. Call the crash phone," declared the tower controller as a China Air A340 roared for takeoff down taxiway K instead of runway 32 at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC) this past Jan. 25. The case is a twist on the runway incursion problem - taxiway incursions. With 254 passengers and crew aboard, the airplane's wheels left 4-inch deep grooves as the airplane barely cleared a snow berm and continued on its flight to Taipei. It was the first of three recent cases where pilots have inadvertently used a taxiway for takeoff, or mistakenly attempted to do so."

[nkped]

Whitney said:

 

"This is going to be seriously ugly. Call the crash phone," declared the tower controller as a China Air A340 roared for takeoff down taxiway K instead of runway 32 at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC) this past Jan. 25. The case is a twist on the runway incursion problem - taxiway incursions. With 254 passengers and crew aboard, the airplane's wheels left 4-inch deep grooves as the airplane barely cleared a snow berm and continued on its flight to Taipei. It was the first of three recent cases where pilots have inadvertently used a taxiway for takeoff, or mistakenly attempted to do so."

 

If memory serves correctly, it was a very cold night, below zero Fahrenheit meaning the jets ran better and the wings had more lift (as I understand it). They might not have made if it had been warmer. Some time on a night flight, look at the airfield lights as you taxi out. The taxiways will have very subdued blue lights at the edges. When the plane turns on to the active runway, it will be brilliantly lit up with white lights. For someone with the training and experience to fly a big jet, to make that mistake is mind boggling. Oh, yes, I fly China Air because it's the only way to get to LOS from Alaska w/o going the wrong direction for 3 1/2 hours. ::

[liquidflux]

Last 2 flights I had on EVA and China Air from SFO-BKK both had a farang pilot and asian co-pilot. Departure and return.