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Untitled edit

I did a major initial re-write as there was some erroneous information in the first one.


Changed "Incident" to "Accident," because those are very specific bits of nomenclature in aviation history. An incident becomes an accident whenever there is significant damage to the airplane itself, or any person on board suffers significant injury. The plane was a total writeoff, even though it was only about 3 months old.


Removed reference to the Captain being a hero. While he did prevent the plane from crashing into the approach lights structure (for runway 31) by a deliberate ground loop maneuver, he was nevertheless the cause of the accident in the first place. He had a mandatory duty to initiate a missed approach procedure at the least, and a wind shear escape maneuver at the most (much higher pitch attitude used during the escape, than would be the case with a normal missed approach maneuver). Instead, the Capt violated that mandatory SOP, and tried to prove he had enough superior skills to make it anyway. That kind of attitude, on the part of airline captains, has been responsible for many fatal accidents over the years.


Removed the word "International" from Kai Tak International Airport. It was correct to refer to "Hong Kong International Airport," or to the Kai Tak Airport, in later years, but not Kai Tak International.


Changed "Hung Hom Bay" to "Victoria Harbor," since that was the name that the South China Morning Post used (the dominant Hong Kong newspaper), in its series of articles on that crash.


Changed "following an Instrument Landing System (ILS) approach." to "IGS 13 non-precision approach," because an ILS approach is a precision approach, that always has a course line which is either a match to the magnetic heading of the runway itself, or rarely more than 2 to 3 degrees different than that. The IGS (instrument guidance system) 13 approach was not a precision approach, and its course line was 47 degrees different than the magnetic course of the runway. It also had very high minimums, reflecting its non-precision nature (I think it was about 640 feet, when I flew it numerous times), in comparison to the 100 to 200 foot minimums, that is typical of true ILS approaches.


Removed these statements "everybody was in the brace potiston when the plane crashed into the water. They were wearing life jackets when the plane went into the water.", since they were not true. Life jackets are put on by passengers, before the landing, only when a ditching into water is planned in advance. And, the "brace position" is ordered for all passengers and crew, only when they are planning what might be a crash landing. Neither was the case, in this accident. They did not plan to ditch, nor did they plan to go off the runway. The life vests were put on by the passengers, after the plane came to a stop in the water. Since the flight attendants did not know the plane was already sitting on solid ground (in the water), it was proper for them to assume the plane would eventually sink, so they quite properly ordered all the passengers to don their life vests, after the plane came to a stop.


Added to the "Aftermath" section, information about why the vertical stabilizer was dynamited off the airplane, before the major operation----of the removal of the entire plane----began.

I doubt that a lengthy accident report was ever issued on this accident, since no one suffered significant injury. Most likely just a paragraph or two, in an initial briefing by the appropriate civil aviation agency with jurisdiction at that time and place. Reference to news articles are all that we have, in the way of source material. If anyone does know of an official accident report, it would be great if they would install a link to it. The existing link, which seems to be a source to an accident report (http://www.airfleets.net/crash/crash_report_China Airlines_B-165.html Accident Report] by the airfleet), does not work. Someone should remove that one.

EditorASC (talk) 21:30, 19 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

Changed location edit

Hope I'm not violating any policy on how we refer to locations in China-related articles, but I changed the location in the infobox from China to Hong Kong as its:

  1. more specific;
  2. Hong Kong is a seperate jurisdiction in relation to air navigation I believe; and
  3. Hong Kong was still under British administration at the time

Chrism would like to hear from you 18:00, 20 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

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