| |
| |
![]() |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
TOKYO: Japanese airlines Tuesday carried out emergency checks on planes as inspectors probed a blaze that gutted a Taiwanese airliner minutes after it landed in Japan.
The government ordered three Japanese airlines to check a total of 23 Boeing jets with the same type of engine as the China Airlines Boeing 737-800 which burst into flames Monday on Japan's southern island of Okinawa.
All 165 passengers and crew raced out and escaped the engulfing flames and plumes of black smoke. Only three people were taken to hospital.
The three carriers -- Japan Airlines, All Nippon Airways and Skymark Airlines -- said they finished checks and confirmed the safety of their planes, which went into service Tuesday as scheduled.
Investigators from Japan's transport ministry and Okinawa police began a joint probe into the fire on the aircraft, whose charred remains lay in pieces at the Naha airport.
Television footage showed investigators with white helmets and some wearing masks sifting through the debris and taking pictures of the engines, where the flames were believed to have broken out.
"Our team in Okinawa will collect necessary evidence including the voice recorder for analysis," Hiromi Tsurumi, an official of the transport ministry's Aircraft and Railway Accidents Investigation Commission, said in Tokyo.
"It's not easy to single out the causes of an airplane accident because several elements usually go together," Tsurumi said. "It may take time ... like at least half a year to announce the causes of the accident."
Investigators from Taiwan and the United States, where Boeing Co. is based, were also due to join the probe later, officials said.
The incident is rekindling memories in Japan of a major crash by a China Airlines plane here in 1994 which killed 264 people when the Airbus A300 nosedived on landing in the city of Nagoya. - AFP/ac
|
