China Airlines Flight 676
Airbus A300B4-622R · Stalled and crashed while performing a go around caused by pilot error
From Denpasar I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport (DPS) to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (TPE)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA98WA044
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- Event fatalities
- 202 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 6
- Occupants
- 196
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Unknown
Airbus A300B4-622R
- Flight
- CI676
- Aircraft type
- Airbus A300
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- B-1814
- Operator
- China Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- 196
- Route
- From Denpasar I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport (DPS)To Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (TPE)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 129: Foreign
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Not recorded
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Not recorded
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
- Personnel issues › Miscellaneous
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
China Airlines Flight 676 was a scheduled international passenger flight. On 16 February 1998, the Airbus A300 jet airliner operating the flight crashed into a road and residential area in Tayuan, Taoyuan County (now Taoyuan City), near Chiang Kai-shek International Airport (now Taoyuan International Airport), Taiwan.
The Airbus A300 was en route from Ngurah Rai Airport in Bali, Indonesia, to Taipei, Taiwan. The weather was inclement, with rain and fog, when the aircraft approached Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, so the pilot executed a missed approach. After the jet was cleared to land at runway 05L, the autopilot was disengaged, and the pilots then attempted a manual go-around. The jet slowed, pitched up by 40°, rose 1000 ft, stalled, and crashed into a residential neighbourhood, bursting into flames. All 196 people on board were killed (including the governor of Taiwan's central bank, Sheu Yuan-dong, his wife, and three central bank officials), along with six people on the ground. Hsu Lu, the manager of the Voice of Taipei radio station, said that one boy was pulled alive from the wreckage and later died.
Accident
The plane took off from Ngurah Rai International Airport, Bali, en route to Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, Taipei, Taiwan, with 182 passengers and 14 crew at 15:27.
The Airbus carried out an instrument landing system/distance-measuring equipment (ILS/DME) approach to runway 05L at Taipei Chiang Kai-shek Airport in light rain and fog, but came in 1000 ft too high above the glide slope (at 1515 ft and 1.2 nmi short of the runway threshold). Go-around power was applied 19 seconds later, and the landing gear was raised and the flaps set to 20° as the aircraft climbed through 1700 ft in a 35° pitch-up angle.
Reaching 2751 ft (42.7° pitch-up, 45 kn speed), the A300 stalled. Control could not be regained, as the aircraft fell and smashed into the ground 200 ft left of the runway. It then surged forward, hit a utility pole and a median strip of Provincial Highway 15 and skidded into several houses, surrounded by fish farms, rice paddies, factories, and warehouses, and exploded, killing all on board and 6 people on the ground.
Weather was 2400 ft visibility, runway visual range runway 05L of 3900 ft, 300 ft broken ceiling, 3000 ft overcast. According to the cockpit voice recorder, the last words, from the first officer, were "Pull it up, too low!" This was surrounded by the terrain alarm and stall warnings.
Investigation and cause
Investigation and conclusion
On initial approach to land, the aircraft was more than 300 m above its normal altitude when it was only 6 nautical miles away from the airport. Nonetheless, it continued the approach. Only when approaching the runway threshold was a go-around initiated. During this time, the pilot had pushed the yoke forward and the plane's autopilot was disengaged, but he was not aware of it, so during the go-around, he did nothing to actively take control of the plane, as he thought the autopilot would initiate the maneuver. For 11 seconds, the plane was under no one's control.
Following a formal investigation that had continued for nearly 2 years, a final report by a special task force under the Civil Aviation Administration concluded that pilot error was the cause of the crash of Flight 676. The report concludes by criticizing China Airlines for "insufficient training" and "poor management of the resources in the pilot's cabin".
Text from the Wikipedia article “China Airlines Flight 676” (revision 1367155856, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
Sources
Wikipedia article: China Airlines Flight 676
- Article
- China Airlines Flight 676
- Revision
- 1367155856 · 2026-08-01 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q709416
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA98WA044
- Event ID
- 20001211X09535
- Case number
- DCA98WA044
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "China Airlines Flight 676" (page 1407627, revision 1367155856); merged with NTSB case DCA98WA044 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record DCA98WA044
- Operation
- airline flight number in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Reviewed (2026-09-19): Taiwan Aviation Safety Council, 'Taiwan Flight Safety Statistics 1996-2005' accident table (CI676: injured/dead 0/202), https://web.archive.org/web/20160828231729id_/https://www.asc.gov.tw/upload/statistics_files/statistics96-05.pdf
- Ground fatalities
- Reviewed (2026-09-19): Taiwan Aviation Safety Council, 'Taiwan Flight Safety Statistics 1996-2005' accident table (CI676: injured/dead 0/202), https://web.archive.org/web/20160828231729id_/https://www.asc.gov.tw/upload/statistics_files/statistics96-05.pdf
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "China Airlines Flight 676" and NTSB case DCA98WA044, matched by the same aircraft maker and place and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- Death toll settled: the NTSB record (DCA98WA044) gives 0 and the Wikipedia article 202; Taiwan Aviation Safety Council, 'Taiwan Flight Safety Statistics 1996-2005' accident table (CI676: injured/dead 0/202) gives 202. The NTSB notification record has no fatality count (0). All 196 aboard died. Ground deaths differ: the Taiwan ASC and Taiwanese press give 6 on the ground (202 total), but ASN and zh-Wikipedia give 7 (203), possibly counting a boy pulled from the wreckage who died later. The en-Wikipedia infobox contradicts itself (total 202, ground 7). I could not read the CAA final report itself. (Medium confidence, for the reason given.)
- The Wikipedia infobox's per-aircraft fatalities don't add up to its total; only the total is shown.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.