China Airlines Flight 006 was a daily non-stop international passenger flight from Taipei to Los Angeles International Airport. On February 19, 1985, the Boeing 747SP operating the flight was involved in an aircraft upset accident, following the failure of the No. 4 engine, while cruising at . The plane rolled over and plunged , experiencing high speeds and g-forces (as high as 5 g) before the captain was able to recover from the dive, and then after noting damage, diverted to San Francisco International Airport. Twenty-four occupants were injured, two of them seriously.

Accident

The aircraft had departed from Taipei at 16:22 Taiwan Standard Time. The accident occurred 10 hours into the flight. The Boeing 747SP-09 was northwest of San Francisco, cruising at an altitude of . The cockpit crew consisted of Captain Min-Yuan Ho, age 55; First Officer Ju-Yu Chang, age 53; Flight Engineer Kuo-Pin Wei, age 55; Relief Captain Chien-Yuan Liao, age 53; and Relief Flight Engineer Po-Chae Su, age 41. The captain had approximately 15,500 flight hours, including 3,748 hours on the Boeing 747. The first officer had more than 7,700 hours with 4,553 of them on the Boeing 747, and the flight engineer had approximately 15,500 hours of flight time, including 4,363 hours on the Boeing 747.

thumb|Aircraft roll and pitch attitudes and time

The flight engineer attempted to restore power to the engine but did not close the bleed valve as required by the checklist procedure. After repairs were made to the plane, it returned to flight status on April 25, 1985.

alt=N4522V now owned by Global Peace Ambassadors in May 2003|thumb|N4522V when owned by [[K. A. Paul#Global Peace One|Global Peace Initiative in May 2003]]

The final report of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), issued in March 1986, stated "The Safety Board can only conclude that the captain was distracted first by the evaluation of the engine malfunction and second by his attempts to arrest the decreasing airspeed, and that, because of these distractions, he was unable to assess properly and promptly the approaching loss of airplane control. The Safety Board also concluded that the captain over-relied on the autopilot and that this was also causal to the accident since the autopilot effectively masked the approaching onset of the loss of control of the airplane."

China Airlines continued operating one of its scheduled Taipei–Los Angeles services as Dynasty 006 until 2018, utilizing the Boeing 747-400 until late 2014, when the Boeing 777-300ER replaced it. In March 2018, due to fleet shortage and financial stress, the flight number was retired and replaced by Flight 008; however, the use of flight number 006 was resumed in June 2019 after the increased requirement of more Taipei–Los Angeles flights, and the use of flight number 006 was retired again in December 2025 and replaced by flight number 008.

  • The Discovery Channel Canada / National Geographic TV series Mayday (also called Air Crash Investigation or Air Emergency) dramatized the accident in a 2007 episode titled Panic Over the Pacific.
  • The flight was documented on an episode of the Weather Channel television program Why Planes Crash titled "Who's Flying".

Notes

References

  • Accident Brief by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.
  • Full Accident Report by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.
  • (Alternate HTML copy () report courtesy of University of Bielefeld – Faculty of technology html version by Hiroshi Sogame Safety Promotion Comt. All Nippon Airways)
  • PDF copy at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
  • Summary and comments in Risks Digest.
  • Wilentz, Amy (March 4, 1985). "Diving From the Heavens". Time.
  • German article with pictures of the damaged airplane after landing in Der Spiegel