China Airlines 747-200 crashes

[Crash999]

A friend of mine is a Thai stewardess on China Airlines. She told me that the 747 in question was well known for being very old and very run-down. She said it was one of the oldest planes in the fleet by far and the condition (at least inside the cabin) was terrible- carts didn't roll properly, doors wouldn't align, storage closets would open during turbulence, toilets repeatedly broke, etc.

 

 

 

She dreaded being assigned to that plane but everyone was thankful that it was about to be sold off to Orient Thai and replaced by one of the company's several new Airbuses (which she said are VERY nice).

 

 

 

As a side note, one of the crew in the rollover incident a few years ago was Thai and she knows my friend quite well. In the back of the plane (can't remember what type) there are seats for four crew, one of which was her friend. When the plane rolled over the lights went out and there was suddenly a lot of water. Initially she thought the plane had gone into the ocean - but it was actually all of the waste water from the toilets dumping onto them. Ew!

 

 

 

There were a few fatalities on that flight and she said that they were all due to people loosely (or not) buckling their seatbelts and having broken their necks as they fell up to the ceiling when the plane turned over.

 

 

 

Cheers!

[stumpy]

Hi Crash,

 

 

 

Interesting info...I see that the black boxes have still not been recovered for the downed CI flight and less than 1% of the plane has been recovered for the investigation.

[Guest]

think_too_mut--

 

 

 

I agree... With appropriate maintainence and attention to detail a plane can run for an awfully long time... I know that UPS still runs older B747-100's that were first delivered into service back in 1970!.. Hell, these planes are older than me.

 

 

 

Anyway, I regularly fly one of them on our ONT-PVG-NRT-ANC-ONT route which operates daily (xSat)

 

 

 

Can't say that I feel any more or less safe on these older B747-100's than on our newest MD-11F's or our B767/B757's...

 

 

 

 

 

Our A&P guys do one hell of a job of keeping our fleet in the air. Can't remember the last time I had a AOG delay.

 

 

 

 

 

--UPSer

 

 

 

 

 

[SoiledCowboy]

It's a strange business with these airlines and their safety, or perceived safety as it relates to PR with the buying public - remember that Qantas 747-400 which rolled off the runway and into a golf-course in HK a couple or so years back? Basically did so because of overly economical flap settings on landing and h/o instructions not to use reverse thrust as a fuel saving - the crew did as instructed by their company on a wet-tarmac landing and simply could not stop in the distance available - the aircraft was deemed a "hull-loss" and this would have destroyed Qantas's safety record for advertising so they promptly spent over AUS$100 million to repair it at any cost...........safety huh............but only if it is economial..... no problems with that, that's life, but with most companies being run by bean-counters these days these incidents seem to increase - the policy of only fixing something if it's broke.

[Guest]

>>> remember that Qantas 747-400 which rolled off the runway and into a golf-course in HK a couple or so years back? <<<

 

 

 

I believe that incident took place right here in Bangkok.

[SoiledCowboy]

My memory is fading fast and you are probably dead right..............I'm trying to remember more than three bargirl names from the past several weeks yet can only come up with Noi,Su and An............even then I have forgotten how to spell them correctly............

[SoiledCowboy]

Just as I posted that last one, what should come on tv but a story that because of that incident at Bangkok, and maybe others, QANTAS was labelled by the Australian Regulatory Authority CASA as "High Risk" - wow - but it has been removed, I guess there was immense commercial and political pressures to do so!