On This Day | Hong Kong-bound China Airlines 605 skids off Kai Tak Airport runway, falls nose-first into Victoria Harbour — from the SCMP archive
- Thirty years after a China Airlines Flight 605 skidded off the runway at Kai Tak Airport and fell into Victoria Harbour, we revisit our coverage of the historic event on November 4, 1993
- The pilot blamed crosswinds for causing the airliner to overrun the runway
By Staff Reporters
The pilot of a China Airlines jumbo jet on Thursday night blamed vicious crosswinds for causing the airliner with 296 people on board to overrun the Kai Tak runway and skid into Victoria Harbour.
Captain Liu Shou-rong was being interviewed by the company’s own investigation team late into the evening, but it was revealed that he had told his bosses that crosswinds whipped up by Severe Tropical Storm Ira were the major factor in the accident.
He had remained at Kai Tak to assist an official Civil Aviation Department inquiry.
Flight CAL 605 from Taipei touched down at 11.37am, when the Typhoon Signal Number 3 was in force and Kai Tak was shrouded in fog and being lashed by heavy rain.
The Hong Kong general manager for China Airlines, Alex Liu Nai-heng, read a statement saying: “At the time, the runway was saturated with rainwater and there were strong crosswinds, making the surface very slippery.
“The plane slipped off the runway and ... fell into the sea.”