2 Faulty 737s Made Consecutively

The Boeing 737 that disintegrated and crashed over Taiwan in 1981 and another one that lost part of its fuselage over Hawaii in April were built back to back, but Boeing executives Tuesday attributed any similarities to coincidence.

The Far Eastern Air Transport 737-200 jet that broke up at 22,000 feet over central Taiwan on Aug. 22, 1981, killing all 110 people on board, was the 151st produced.

No. 152 was the Aloha Airlines aircraft on which a 20-foot section of forward upper fuselage ripped away at 24,000 feet on April 28. A flight attendant fell to her death and 61 passengers were injured, but the pilots landed the plane safely.

The cause of the Aloha accident is still under investigation. But the Federal Aviation Administration has ordered U.S. airlines flying older 737s to reinspect the aircraft and has mandated electronic testing of planes with more than 50,000 landings.

Boeing believes the Far Eastern crash was caused by maintenance problems, spokesman Jack Gamble of Boeing Commercial Airplanes said. Any connection between that crash and the Aloha accident is “a series of coincidences,” Gamble said. “We do not think that is a fair assessment” to directly link the two.