Uni Air Flight 873
McDonnell Douglas MD-90 · Explosion and fire caused by combustible materials
From Taipei Songshan International Airport (TSA) to Hualien Chiashan Airport (HUN)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA99RA074
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 96
- Survivors
- 95
- 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
- 27
- 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
- Not recorded
McDonnell Douglas MD-90
- Flight
- B7873
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas MD-90
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- 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-17912
- Operator
- Uni Air
- Onboard fatalities
- 1
- Route
- From Taipei Songshan International Airport (TSA)To Hualien Chiashan Airport (HUN)
- 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
- Not recorded
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Fluids/misc hardware
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Estimated position: Hualien Chiashan Airport, the airport the Wikipedia article names as the site. Where on or near it is not known.
From the Wikipedia article
Uni Air Flight 873 was a Taiwanese domestic passenger flight between Taipei and Hualien that suffered a fire following an explosion after landing at Hualien Airport, Taiwan, on 24 August 1999, resulting in 27 injuries and one death. This is the first and only fatal accident involving a McDonnell Douglas MD-90.
Accident
Uni Air Flight 873 departed from Taipei Songshan Airport (TSA) bound for Hualien Airport (HUN). It was carrying 90 passengers and six crew. Shortly after landing, at 12:36 local time, an explosion was heard in the front section of the passenger cabin, followed by smoke and then fire. A passenger was struck by fragments produced by the explosion. The pilot braked immediately, and an emergency passenger evacuation was initiated. After a Mayday call from the pilot, fire squads at Hualien Airport and the Air Force Wing rushed to extinguish the fire, which was put out by 13:45 WST.
While the upper part of the fuselage was completely destroyed, all 96 of the occupants were evacuated. 14 passengers were seriously injured, while another 14 suffered minor injuries from the blast. Most of the injured passengers suffered burns. Ku Jing-chi, a passenger and the brother of former Taiwanese decathlete Ku Chin-shui, had serious injuries and died 47 days after the accident, while another passenger had a miscarriage of her 26-week-old unborn child.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
Following the accident, the Aviation Safety Council established an Accident Investigation Team. Initial findings revealed that the factors involved in the accident were not solely related to aviation safety. The investigation later revealed that Ku Chin-shui, who was absent from the flight, had given bottles of flammable liquid to his nephew to transport.
An Aviation Safety Council report said it was thought that the bottles were incorrectly sealed and gasoline fumes leaked, which later ignited when a motorbike battery in a nearby overhead luggage compartment was jostled, discharging an electric arc. Ku was initially sentenced to a 10-year prison term, which was shortened to 7½ years upon appeal. The fifth retrial found him not guilty after the judge said that although Ku had asked his nephew to carry a bottle of bleach in his luggage, the fragments that tested positive for gasoline were not limited to the fragments of the bottle.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Uni Air Flight 873” (revision 1348195440, 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: Uni Air Flight 873
- Article
- Uni Air Flight 873
- Revision
- 1348195440 · 2026-04-11 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q15916977
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA99RA074
- Event ID
- 20001212X19470
- Case number
- DCA99RA074
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Uni Air Flight 873" (page 62785304, revision 1348195440); merged with NTSB case DCA99RA074 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: airport the Wikipedia infobox site links (Wikidata code, OurAirports)
- 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 DCA99RA074
- Operation
- airline flight number in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- Wikipedia: not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (2)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Uni Air Flight 873" and NTSB case DCA99RA074, 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.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.