China Airlines Flight 358 was a

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and p ...

747-2R7F/SCD freighter that crashed on December 29, 1991, shortly after takeoff from

Chiang Kai-shek International Airport Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is an international airport serving Taipei and northern Taiwan. Located about west of Taipei in Dayuan District, Taoyuan, the airport is Taiwan's largest. It was also the busiest airport in Taiwan before ...

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

Aircraft

The aircraft was a Boeing 747-2R7F/SCD, built in September 1980 for

Cargolux Cargolux, legally ''Cargolux Airlines International S.A.'', is a Luxembourgian flag carrier cargo airline with its headquarters and hub at Luxembourg Airport. With a global network, it is one of the largest scheduled all-cargo airlines in Euro ...

as the ''City of

Esch-sur-Alzette Esch-sur-Alzette (; lb, Esch-Uelzecht ; german: Esch an der Alzette or ''Esch an der Alzig'') is the second city of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the country's second-most populous commune, with a population of 35,040 inhabitants, . It lies ...

,'' registration LX-ECV, MSN 22390. It was acquired by

China Airlines China Airlines (CAL; ) is the state-owned flag carrier of the Republic of China (Taiwan), and one of its two major airlines along with EVA Air. It is headquartered in Taoyuan International Airport and operates over 1,400 flights weekly (in ...

in June 1985 was given its registration of B-198. It had been in service for 11 years, 3 months. The aircraft had clocked a total of 45,868 hours of flight time during its time in service. The last A-check maintenance had occurred on 21 December 1991, and the aircraft had accumulated 74 hours of flight time since that point.

Accident

Several minutes after takeoff, the crew reported problems with the #2 engine, prompting Taipei air traffic control (ATC) to vector the flight into a left turn to return to the airport. Approximately two minutes later, the crew reported that they were unable to turn left, and ATC approved a right-hand turn instead. This was the last radio contact made by the crew. The crew lost control of the aircraft and it struck a hill, right wing first, near Wanli, Taipei. The crash occurred at approximately 3:05 p.m, at an altitude of . All five crew members died in the crash, and there were no injuries on the ground.

Investigation

The subsequent investigation revealed that the number 3 engine and its pylon had separated from the aircraft and struck the number 4 engine, breaking it off the wing as well. A more detailed investigation revealed that the pylon midspar fittings, which attach the pylon to the lower portion of the wing front spar, had failed. The search for the number 3 engine and its pylon, which landed in the sea, took several months. Information from the investigation of this crash and the nearly identical crash of El Al Flight 1862 ten months later resulted in Boeing ordering pylon modifications to every 747 in use. The aircraft was the same one involved in the

China Airlines Flight 334 China Airlines Flight 334 was a Boeing 747-2R7F/SCD freighter aircraft that was hijacked by pilot Wang Hsi-chueh () on May 3, 1986, while en route to Don Mueang, Thailand. Wang managed to subdue the two other crew members and changed course to ...

hijacking on 3 May 1986.

References