Flight controllers to be disciplined

Fielding questions from opposition Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Yeh Yi-jin at a committee hearing on the accuracy of a newspaper report describing the incident, Lee Chien-kuo, a section chief at the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA), confirmed that the report was true.

An initial investigation showed that the problem resulted primarily from the flight control staff's failure to follow procedure and handle tasks in order of priority, Lee said.

The controllers involved in the incident have been suspended from their jobs, he added.

According to the newspaper report, a JAL flight from Tokyo made a request to land at the Kaohsiung airport in southern Taiwan at 10:07 p.m. March 6.

A flight controller approved the request but failed to turn on the runway lights before going to answer an office phone call.

At 10:10 p.m., controllers discovered that runway lights had yet to be turned on and immediately contacted the JAL pilot, whose aircraft was only one nautical mile away from the runway at a height of about 300 feet.

The pilot also realized that the runway lights were not turned on and asked to abort the landing. At 10:11 p.m., the control tower turned on the runway lights and JAL flight 657 landed smoothly.

Legislator Yeh said the mistake was incredible and detrimental because it could scare away would-be tourists.

Lee said the CAA will call a meeting Friday to discuss further disciplinary measures for all relevant personnel over the incident.

The CAA has also informed all of the country's flight control towers of the incident and demanded that all staff members remain focused while on duty and give top priority to flight control.

“We will also use the incident as an example for intensive training drills to avoid a repeat of the mistake,” Lee assured lawmakers present at the hearing.

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