‘Flameout . . . Flameout . . .!’ Tape Tells Terror of Jetliner’s 32,000-Foot Plunge

“We’re very emergency. . . . We can’t control the airplane,” the crew of a China Airlines jumbo jet exclaimed as the aircraft suddenly plunged 32,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean northwest of San Francisco on Feb 19.

The recorded conversation between the crew and the air traffic control center in Oakland was released here Friday by the Federal Aviation Administration. While it appeared to offer few clues about what happened, it revealed how unexpectedly the incident occured.

The Boeing 747, carrying 274 persons from Taiwan to Los Angeles, landed safely in San Francisco, but 15 passengers and two cabin attendants required emergency treatment.

At 10:13 a.m. Pacific time, according to the transcript of the recorded conversation, the crew of China Airlines Flight 6 reported its 41,000-foot altitude. Less than a minute later, it suddenly requested a lower altitude. An air traffic controller told the plane to descend to 24,000 feet and asked four times, “Do your hear me?”

“Emergency . . . emergency,” the crew said at 10:16 a.m. “ . . . Flameout. . . . Flameout. . . . We are niner thousand niner thousand . . . ,” meaning the plane had already dropped to 9,000 feet.

Two minutes later, a crew member said, “We can climb . . . ah little higher, little bit higher.” A minute later, he acknowledged, “Now we can control the aircraft,” and the plane began climbing.

A crew member said he wanted to continue on to Los Angeles because “condition normal . . . normal now.” But at 10:35 a.m., he asked to land in San Francisco. “Due to . . . landing gear we cannot ah retract . . . we can’t climb higher altitude. . . . We are (maintaining) ah two seven zero . . . .”

The Boeing 747 was severely damaged when it landed in San Francisco, with more than 10 feet of both the right and left stabilizers missing.

National Transportation Safety Board officials have said the aircraft began its precipitous descent with the automatic pilot engaged. According to the board, the plane rolled at least 160 degrees--it turned nearly upside down--and its nose was pitched down more than 60 degrees.

While the plane’s crew reportedly maintains that all four engines failed, federal investigators believe only the No. 4 engine failed. NTSB spokesman Ira Furman said the investigators “have not been able to confirm or identify where there was a loss of power in the other three engines.”