Singapore Airlines Flight 006 - Contesting Investigation Findings

Contesting Investigation Findings

The report by ASC was deemed controversial by Singapore's Ministry of Communications & Information Technology (now Ministry of Transport), Singapore Airlines and the International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations (IFALPA), among others.

Singaporean officials protested that the report did not present a full account of the incident and was incomplete, as responsibility for the accident appeared to have been placed mainly on the flight crew of SQ006, while other equally valid contributing factors had been played down. The team from Singapore that participated in the investigation felt that the lighting and signage at the airport did not measure up to international standards. Some critical lights were missing or not working. No barriers or markings were put up at the start of the closed runway, which would have alerted the flight crew that they were on the wrong runway. The Singapore team felt that these two factors were given less weight than was proper, as another flight crew had almost made the same mistake of using runway 05R to take off days before the accident.

Singapore Airlines also issued a statement after the release of the ASC report. In their statement, Singapore Airlines reiterated the points brought up by the Singapore investigators and added that air traffic control (ATC) did not follow their own procedure when they gave clearance for SQ006 to take off despite ATC's not being able to see the aircraft. Singapore Airlines also clarified that the paravisual display (PVD) was meant to help the flight crew maintain the runway centreline in poor visibility, rather than to identify the runway in use.

The statement by Kay Yong (戎凱 Rēng Kǎi), managing director of the Republic of China's Aviation Safety Council, implied that pilot error played a major role in the crash of the Boeing 747-400, which led to the deaths of 83 people. He stated that the airport should have placed markers stating that the runway was closed to takeoffs and landings.

In general, airport runways that are closed are not normally lighted, to make it clear they are not in use. At Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport, a single switch controlled green lights on the common taxiway to both runways and on the centreline of runway 05R. Civil Aeronautics Administration Deputy Director Chang Kuo-cheng said runway 05L was fully lit on Tuesday night by white and yellow lights and only the green centreline lighting was illuminated on closed runway 05R. On the taxiway to the runways, four large signs point the way to runway 05L, he added, and he refused to state explicitly that pilot error was the primary cause of the mix-up.

Runway 05R was not blocked off by barriers because part of the strip was used by landing planes to taxi back to the airport terminal. The pilot confirmed twice with the control tower that he was on the correct runway; controllers did not know the plane had actually gone on to the wrong runway because the airport lacked ground radar and the plane was out of sight of the tower at the time of its takeoff.