26th August 2010, 09:35 PM
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Member
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Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 723
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Interesting article:
Quote:
AT least one airline had questioned the safety of night landings at the Chinese airport where 42 people were killed on Tuesday night.
The newly-built airport in Yichun sits in a forested valley and has operated for a year, The Advertiser reports.
China Southern Airlines decided last August to avoid night flights in and out of Yichun, switching its daily flight from Harbin to the daytime.
A technical notice cited concerns about the airport's surrounding terrain, runway lighting and wind and weather conditions.
"Principally, there should be no night flights at Yichun airport,'' said the notice from China Southern's Heilongjiang branch that was posted online.
An employee with the branch's technical office confirmed the notice's authenticity.
The crash and fire were so severe, little of the fuselage remained, though the charred tail still largely was intact.
China Central Television said eight of the victims were found 20m to 30m from the plane's wreckage in a muddy field.
It said the pilot, Qi Quanjun, survived the crash but was badly hurt and cannot speak.
One survivor told Xinhua there was strong turbulence just after the announcement the plane was about to land.
Survivors among the 96 passengers and crew described scenes of horror, with luggage falling down and escapes through flames and broken holes in the fuselage.
This was China's first major commercial air disaster in nearly six years.
The plane's two black boxes were recovered, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, but it still is not known what caused the accident.
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