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Far Eastern Air Transport Flight 103 facts for kids

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Far Eastern Air Transport Flight 103
A Far Eastern Air Transport Boeing 737-200 similar to the one that crashed
Accident summary
Date August 22, 1981 (1981-08-22)
Summary Explosive decompression
Place near Taipei
Passengers 104
Crew 6
Fatalities 110
Survivors 0
Aircraft type Boeing 737-200
Airline/user Far Eastern Air Transport
Registration B-2603
Flew from Taipei Songshan Airport
Flying to Kaohsiung International Airport
The Cenotaph of Far Eastern Air Transport Flight 103 Accident-P1000547
The cenotaph of the Far East Air Transport Flight 103 accident

Far East Air Transport Flight 103, a Boeing 737-200, registration B-2603, departed Taipei Songshan Airport for Kaohsiung on 22 August 1981. The aircraft suffered an explosive decompression fourteen minutes after takeoff and disintegrated.

Summary

The aircraft had previously lost cabin pressure on 5 August; and earlier on the day of the crash it had departed Songshan Airport but the crew aborted the flight ten minutes later for the same reason. After repairs were made the aircraft departed Songshan Airport again and broke up shortly afterward.

Cause

Although there was early speculation that the crash was caused by a bomb, an investigation by the Republic of China Civil Aeronautics Board concluded that severe corrosion led to a pressure hull rupture. The severe corrosion was due to the many pressurization flight cycles the aircraft had experienced, and that cracks produced were probably undetected.

The wreckage was scattered across an area of 4 miles (6 km) located some 94 miles (151 km) south of Taipei. All 110 people onboard (110 passengers and crew, including eighteen Japanese citizens (among them Kuniko Mukōda) and two Americans) died. The accident was Taiwan's worst air disaster at the time, but is now the second-worst, behind China Airlines Flight 676.

Related pages

  • UK CAA Document CAA 429 World Airline Accident Summary (ICAO Summary 4/76)
  • Accident description at the Aviation Safety Network

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Vuelo 103 de Far Eastern Air Transport para niños

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