From: xiong@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Bo Xiong)
Subject: Nanjing: Jetliner Crash Killed 100+ / Thai Airways Crashes In Nepal
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 15:29:15 -0500

--------------------------- Forwarding -------------------------------
From: CND Source
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 92 14:55:21 EST

@@@ AP    07/31
At Least 100 Killed, 26 Injured In Jetliner Crash In China

    BEIJING - A Chinese Yak-42 airliner crashed Friday while taking off from
the Nanjing airport.

    The crash killed at least 100 people and injured 26, the state-run
Xinhua News Agency said.

    Xinhua said the plane was carrying 116 passengers and 10 crew members, and
that efforts to rescue the injured were under way.

    The plane, headed from the eastern city of Nanjing to Xiamen, on China's
southeast coast, crashed at 3:10 p.m.  (3:10 a.m. EDT), Xinhua said. It said
the plane ''failed to lift off and burst into a ball of flames'' about 600
yards from the runway.

    A fire brigade and medical teams arrived soon after, Xinhua said. It
said the cause of the crash was under investigation.

    Sun Bin, an official at the Jiangsu Province Foreign Affairs Office, didn't
know if any foreigners were on board.

    ''Chinese would be in the majority,'' he said. He said he had no
other information about the crash, including the progress of rescue
efforts.

    Xinhua said the Nanjing airport had resumed normal operation.

    There was no explanation for the 11-hour delay in reporting the crash.
Communist China's official media must await high-level approval before
reporting disasters.

    Vice Premier Zhu Rongji went to the scene and visited the injured.


@@@ AP    07/31
China News Agency Says 100 Dead In Plane Crash In Nanjing, Rescue Efforts 
Said Under Way

  BEIJING -AP- A Chinese Yak-42 airliner crashed while taking off from the
Nanjing airport, killing at least 100 people and injuring 26, the state-run
Xinhua News Agency said. 
  Xinhua said the plane was carrying 116 passengers and 10 crew members, and
that efforts to rescue the injured are under way. 
  The plane, headed from Nanjing to Xiamen, crashed at 3:10 p.m. (3:10 a.m.
EDT) while trying to take off. 
  Xinhua said it burst into flames about 600 yards from the runway. 
  Vice Premier Zhu Rongji went to the scene tonight and visited the injured in
hospitals, Xinhua said. 
  Its brief report gave no other details. 
  China's last major plane accident was on Oct. 2, 1990, when a jet that had
been hijacked crashed into two other planes at Canton airport, killing 128
people. 



@@@ AP    07/31
Thai Jetliner Crashes In Nepal; All 113 Aboard Feared Dead

    KATMANDU, Nepal - A Thai Airways jetliner carrying 113 people, including
11 Americans, crashed into a Himalayan mountain in heavy rain Friday.
    The crash occurred minutes after the pilot reported a technical problem.
    Airport officials said they doubted there were any survivors among the 99
passengers and the 14 crew members. The plane was flight TG311 from Bangkok to
Katmandu.
    Most of the passengers were apparently tourists.
    The air-traffic control tower lost contact with the A310-300 Airbus 47
miles south of the Katmandu airport near the village of Simra in the
foothills of the Himalayas, the airline said.
    Alerted by villagers, troops and policemen at a remote outpost north of
Simra located the wreckage in a forested area 8,500 feet high, said the
vice president of Thai Airways, Chatrachai Bunya-Ananta.
    Nagendra Ghimire, deputy airport manager in Katmandu, said the plane
apparently slammed into the mountain in heavy rain as it was preparing to land.
    ''I doubt if there can be any survivors,'' he said.
    The region is in central Nepal, 30 miles south of Katmandu. The crash site
itself is a 3-hour walk from the Shimbhjyng mountain pass, which con-
nects Katmandu to the southern town of Bhainse. The pass snakes around hills
and traverses steep mountains, some as high as 9,000 feet.
    Ghimire refused to say what could have caused the crash.
    But he said that when the jet was 15 minutes from Katmandu, the pilot
reported a technical hitch. A few minutes later, however, the pilot said
the problem had been overcome.
    ''I am OK now and coming in to land from Simra,'' Ghimire quoted the
captain as saying in the final contact.
    ''After that there was no sign of the plane,'' he said.
    At about the same time, air-traffic controllers in the Indian city of
Calcutta, 400 miles to the southeast, also lost contact with the aircraft,
officials there said.
    News of the crash was delayed because of poor communications with the
police outpost in the Chisapani jungle near the mountain pass.
    Ghimire said he had no information if rescue teams had reached the site by
late Friday night.
    In Bangkok, an airline statement said that besides the 11 Americans, the
other passengers included 17 Japanese and 23 Nepalese.
    The plane also carried five Belgians, five Finns, four Germans,
three Spaniards, two Thais, two Koreans, two Israelis, two Britons, two
Canadians, one New Zealander and one Australian.
    The airline said the missing plane, built in November 1987, was leased from
a Canadian company, Blenheim, in May 1990.


@@@ AP-DJ 07/31
Thai Airliner Crashes, No Apparent Survivors

  KATMANDU, Nepal -(AP-DJ)--A Thai Airways International jetliner carrying 113
people slammed into a hill in heavy rain Friday in the forested Himalayan
foothills as it prepared to land, airport officials said. 
  Nepalese army searches found the wreckage in the Palung Valley about 50
miles south of Katmandu, a three-hour march from the nearest road, said
Nagendra Ghimire, the deputy airport manager. 
  Since the plane crashed on a hill, the chances of any survivors is very
slim,' he told reporters. 
  The pilot radioed a technical hitch as the plane approached the airport but
reported a few minutes later that he had resolved the problem, said Ghimire,
the deputy airport manager. 
  Ghimire did not say what the technical problem was. 
  The aircraft, apparently carrying many tourists, lost contact with the air
control tower 47 miles south of the airport near the village of Simra, where
the hills begin to rise to the Himalayas, Thai Airways said. 
  Flight TG311 had departed Bangkok and was en route to Nepal. 
  Three army helicopters initially scoured the area around the airport in the
Katmandu Valley. 
  Thai Airways said 99 passengers and 14 crew members were aboard the plane,
but it accounted for only 80 of them by nationality. 
  A statement released in Bangkok listed 11 Americans, 17 Japanese, 23
Nepalese and 14 Europeans.  Other passengers came from Israel, Australia, New
Zealand, Canada and Finland. 

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Forwarded to SCC by Bo Xiong in Chicago