Air China (Chinese: 中国国际航空公司, Zhōngguó Guójì Hángkōng Gōngsī, literally Chinese International Aviation Company, abbreviated 国航) is the Peoples Republic of Chinas state owned and largest commercial airline (not to be confused with China Airlines, which is the Republic of China (Taiwan)s state airline), and the only airline...Air China flight 129 (CCA129, CA129) is a flight from Airport terminal architecture in Beijing Airport (July 2004 image) Beijing Capital International Airport (北京首都国际机场 Pinyin: Běijīng Shǒudū Guójì Jīchǎng) is an airport in Beijing, Peoples Republic of China. ...Beijing Capital International Airport, Beijing  listen? ( Chinese: 北京; pinyin: ; Wade_Giles: Pei_ching; ; Postal System Pinyin: Peking), is the capital city of the Peoples Republic of China. ...Beijing, The Great Wall of China, stretching over 6,700 km, was erected beginning in the 3rd century BC to guard the north from raids by men on horses. ...China to Gimhae International Airport, also commonly referred to as Kimhae International Airport, is an airport in Gimhae, South Korea, near the city of Busan. ...Gimhae International Airport, Pūsan is also a Vedic Hindu god. ...Busan, South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK; Korean: Daehan Minguk (Hangul: 대한 민국; Hanja: 大韓民國)), is a country in East Asia, covering the southern half of the Korean Peninsula. ...South Korea.

On April 15 is the 105th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (106th in leap years). ...April 15, 2002 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...2002, the jet on this route crashed into a hill near Pusan, killing 128 of 166 on board.

Disaster

The The Boeing 767 is a commercial passenger airplane manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. ...Boeing 767_200 took off at 0837 local time (0037 UTC also stands for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Coordinated Universal Time or UTC, also sometimes referred to as Zulu time, the basis for civil time, differs by an integral number of seconds from atomic time and a fractional number of seconds from UT1. ...UTC). After nearly 2 hours flight, it arrived near Gimhae airport in light rain and mist. On 1120 local time (0220UTC), CA129 got the runway 36L landing clearance from Gimhae tower, but the aircraft go_around after a missed approach due to low visibility. After an attempt to circle_to_land on runway 18R (Which is the same runway from an opposite direction), the crew concentrated too much on the weather and ATC is an abbreviation of: Agreement on Textiles and Clothing Air traffic control Air Training Corps All_terrain (motor)cycle _ see all_terrain vehicle All Things Considered, a news show on National Public Radio in the United States. ...ATC communications while lost the Minimum Safty Altitude (MSA) and crashed into a hill on final of runway 18R at 1140 local time (0240UTC). The aircraft broke into parts and subsequently came into fire. 38 survived including the captain.

Aircraft

• Model: The Boeing 767 is a commercial passenger airplane manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. ...Boeing 767_2J6/ER
• Registration: B_2552
• Previous Registrations: N60659
• MSN/CN: 23308/127
• Engine: Pratt & Whitney is an American owned aircraft engine manufacturer whose products are widely used in both civil and military aircraft. ...Pratt & Whitney The Pratt & Whitney JT9D engine is the first high_bypass_ratio engine to power a wide_bodied aircraft. ...JT9D_7R4E4
• Year of Delivery: 1985 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...1985

Crew Members

• Flight Crew:
  • Captain is both a nautical term and a military rank. ...Captain: Wu Xinlu (吴新禄), 6000 hours on Boeing 767, 5 times to Pusan, got the captain's license on November 23, 2001;
  • First Officer: Gao Lijie (高立杰);
  • First Officer: Hou Xiangning (侯向宁);
• Flight Attendants:
  • Ye Hongxia (叶红霞), Wang Ze (王泽), Zhang Wanhua (张婉华)、He Zhen (贺珍), Xu Liya (许丽雅), Du Dazheng (杜大正), Luo Rui (罗睿) and Sun Jiayue (孙嘉悦).

Passengers

Among the 155 passengers, 135 were from Korea is a formerly unified country, situated on the Korean Peninsula in northern East Asia, bordering on China to the west and Russia to the north. ...Korea, 19 from The Great Wall of China, stretching over 6,700 km, was erected beginning in the 3rd century BC to guard the north from raids by men on horses. ...China and 1 from The Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia (it is surrounded only by landlocked countries and, along with Liechtenstein, is one of only two such countries in the world). ...Uzbekistan.

Weather

Weather at the time of crash was poor. According to the METAR is a format for reporting weather information. ...METAR record at Gimhae airport, visibility was below 4000 meters with light rain and mist:

METAR RKPK 150300Z 21009KT 4000 _RA BR SCT005 BKN010 OVC025 16/13 Q1015 =

Accident Report

The official accident report has never been released to the public, but the most reliable explanation was "poor weather on approach".

According to an unidentified source [1] (http://www.carnoc.com/cgi_bin/bbs3000/bbs.cgi?menu=show&slttitle=20030913194354&id=pilot), the Civil Aviation Administration of China released an internal file in June 24, 2002, as the reason of the accident had "cleared". The file listed the following events:

• When the aircraft approached the destination, poor weather forced the crew to circle_to_land and the crew lost visual reference on final. Meanwhile, the crew concentrated too much on the weather and on ATC communication, and ignored the minimum safety altitude;
• The captain was not in the Cockpit of a light aircraft, showing instrumentation dials and dual control yokes. ...cockpit at the time of the crash;
• A combination of poor weather and inexperienced ATC control;
• The landing A checklist is a tool that is used as a human factors aid in aviation safety to ensure that a long list of items are not forgotten. ...checklist was not completed on approach.

The internal file also provided the reason why the captain was not in the cockpit. According to this, the scheduled captain asked for a day off, so Air China replaced him with Wu Xinlu, who had just came back from flying a China_Japan route. Because of excessive fatigue, Capt. Wu went to the rear seat in the passenger cabin for a nap after the plane took off from Beijing. He survived while all in the cockpit died. The In aircraft, the flight data recorder (FDR) and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) are used to record aircraft and pilot behavior in order to analyze accidents, and are usually called black boxes by the news media. ...CVR also recorded a first officer calling, "Come on, call the captain!" in the last seconds.

What Happened to the Flight Number?

Despite this accident, Air China did not need to change the flight route designator for its Beijing _ Pusan route. Two days after the accident, another 767 served as flight 129 and safely carried 106 passengers from Beijing to Pusan, although the flight was delayed for 10 hours and 10 minutes due to bad weather. [2]  (http://www.air168.com/news/darticle.asp?id=36&newstype=2) Although Air China now runs a Boeing 737_800 on this route, the flight route designator remains flight 129.

External Links

• [3]  (http://www.people.com.cn/GB/guoji/209/7934/index.html) Topic of "The 4.15 Air Disaster" on The Peoples Daily ( Chinese: 人民日报; pinyin: ) is a Simplified_Chinese_language newspaper published not only in mainland China but worldwide with the circulation of 3 to 4 million. ...People's Daily (In Simplified Chinese);
• [4] (http://www.airdisaster.com/cgi_bin/view-details.cgi?date=04152002&reg=B_2552&airline=Air+China) Accident Database record on airdisaster.com;
• [5] (http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?regsearch=B_2552&distinct-entry=true) Accident aircraft B_2552 photos on airliners.net.