The team investigating the crash of Singapore Airlines SQ006 staged a re-creation of the ill-fated flight early Monday morning using a Boeing cargo plane, aviation safety officials said.
The exercise, held at Chiang Kai Shek airport at 3:30 am (1930 GMT Sunday), was aimed at determining why the Boeing 747-400 passenger jet tried to take off late Tuesday from a runway sealed for repairs, leading to the crash, which killed 82 people.
"We've filmed the entire process, which will be analyzed as reference in the investigation," said Jung Kai, chief executive officer of Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council.
He said 15 aviation experts from the council, Boeing Co. and Singapore Airlines (SIA) were aboard the SIA cargo plane at the airport.
However, the weather was fair during the re-creation -- unlike when the Los Angeles-bound flight with 159 passengers and 20 crew on board tried to take off during a typhoon.
The plane's Malaysian pilot, captain Foong Chee Kong, co-pilots Latiff Cyrano and Ng Kheng Leng, who all survived the crash, have been barred from leaving Taiwan pending the outcome of the investigation.
It is expected the council may take several months to come up with a final report into the crash.
At a press conference Friday, Jung released the excerpts from the last four minutes of tape in the cockpit voice recorder, which stops abruptly at a little past 11:17 pm on Tuesday.
Foong, who has more than 11,000 hours of flight time, was instructed to use runway 05L, which runs parallel to closed 05R, and correctly read back the instructions.
Sinapore Airlines has acknowledged that "pilot error" put the jumbo jet on the wrong runway, but questioned whether his mistake was influenced by misleading lighting and asked why the closed runway was not blocked off.
Taiwan's aviation chief on Saturday fervently denied the airport's safety facilities were inadequate and had contributed to the crash.
The head of the crash investigation, prosecutor Song Kuo-yeh, has said the plane exploded after hitting "steel items" and two mechanical excavators while trying to take off on the closed runway.
Song has said the three pilots could face up to five years in jail if convicted of manslaughter.
Singapore Airlines on Saturday offered 400,000 US dollars to the families of the 82 victims, and said it would pay the medical expenses of injured passengers and crew and discuss further compensation with them.
But some bereaved families of the 26 Taiwanese killed in the crash have turned down the compensation offer, and demanded 20 million Taiwan dollars (621,200 US) each on the grounds the pilots should not have made "the unforgivable error."
The distraught families also insisted on an apology from the three pilots -- TAIPEI (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
