Formosa Airlines Flight 7601 was an aviation accident that killed 16 people on 10 August 1997 in

Beigan Beigan Township (; Foochow Romanized: Báe̤k-găng-hiŏng), is an insular rural township in Lienchiang County (the Matsu Islands), Taiwan (ROC). The township is in the East China Sea off the coast of Fujian Province, China near Fuzhou (Foochow ...

Matsu Islands The Matsu Islands ( or , ; Foochow Romanized: Mā-cū liĕk-dō̤), officially Lienchiang County (, ; Foochow Romanized: Lièng-gŏng-gâing), are an archipelago of 36 islands and islets in the East China Sea governed by the Republic of China ( ...

Fujian Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capi ...

, Republic of China.

Accident

Formosa Airlines Flight 7601, a

Dornier 228 The Dornier 228 is a twin-turboprop STOL utility aircraft, designed and first manufactured by Dornier GmbH (later DASA Dornier, Fairchild-Dornier) from 1981 until 1998. Two hundred and forty-five were built in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. In 19 ...

took off from Taipei Sungshan Airport at 07:37 local time with 14 passengers and two pilots on board for a flight to

Matsu Beigan Airport Matsu Beigan Airport () is one of the airports in Matsu Islands, Lienchiang County, Fukien Province, Taiwan (ROC). It also serves as a heliport and located on Beigan Island. It is served by Uni Air ATR 72-600 (立榮航空) with scheduled ...

. Rain and high winds caused the plane to miss its first approach to Matsu Beigan Airport. During its go around, the pilot turned right instead of left. The aircraft crashed and caught fire after it struck a military

water tower A water tower is an elevated structure supporting a water tank constructed at a height sufficient to pressurize a water distribution system, distribution system for potable water, and to provide emergency storage for fire protection. Water towe ...

approximately one kilometer from the airport. All 16 passengers and crew on board were killed. Shortly after the crash, a local weather official tried to commit suicide. The Director of the Civil Aeronautics Administration, Tsai Tui, said the suicide attempt stemmed from public outcry over the crash.Weather official attempts suicide
" ''

Wilmington Morning Star ''Star-News'' is an American, English language daily newspaper for Wilmington, North Carolina, and its surrounding area (known as the Lower Cape Fear). It is North Carolina's oldest newspaper in continuous publication. It was owned by Halifax ...

''. Tuesday 12 August 1997. p. 1A. Retrieved from

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...

(20/34) on 13 March 2014.

References

External links

* () {{coord missing, Taiwan Aviation accidents and incidents in 1997 Aviation accidents and incidents in Taiwan Accidents and incidents involving the Dornier 228 Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error Airliner accidents and incidents caused by weather 1997 in Taiwan August 1997 events in Asia 1997 meteorology 1997 disasters in Taiwan