China Airlines Flight 358 was a Boeing 747 freighter that crashed on December 29, 1991, shortly after takeoff from Chiang Kai-shek International Airport near Taipei, Taiwan. All five crew members were killed.
Aircraft
The aircraft was a Boeing 747-2R7F/SCD, built in September 1980 for Cargolux as the City of Esch-sur-Alzette, registration LX-ECV, MSN 22390. It was acquired by China Airlines in June 1985 and was re-registered as B-198. It had been in service for 11 years and 3 months. The aircraft had clocked a total of 45,868 hours of flight time and 9,095 takeoff and landing cycles during its time in service. The last A-check maintenance had occurred on 21 December 1991, and the aircraft had accumulated 74 hours of flight time since that point.
The aircraft was the same one involved in the China Airlines Flight 334 hijacking on 3 May 1986 but was later restored into business after the hijacking.
Accident
Several minutes after takeoff, while at an altitude of , the crew reported problems with the number 3 engine, prompting Taipei air traffic control (ATC) to vector the flight into a left turn to return to the airport.