Thai Airways International Flight 601


Thai Airways International Flight 601 was a Sud Aviation Caravelle that crashed into the sea on landing at the former Kai Tak Airport, Hong Kong, in a typhoon on Friday. 30 June 1967.

Accident

Flight 601 took off from Taipei Songshan Airport on an hour-long flight to Kai Tak Airport. The Sud Aviation Caravelle, which had made its first flight in 1960, had 80 souls aboard: 73 passengers and 7 crew. With the plane on ILS approach to runway 31 at Kai Tak, the Captain became occupied trying to make visual contact with the ground, and failed to notice that the aircraft had descended below the decision height of. The crew made an abrupt heading change, and then entered a high-speed descent. The aircraft undershot runway 31 and crashed into the sea, killing 24 passengers.
in 1971, some four years after the crash of Flight 601.

Probable cause

The probable cause of the accident was pilot error, specifically not noticing that the aircraft had descended below the glide slope. The presence of strong wind shear and downdrafts as a result of then-present Typhoon Anita was a probable contributing factor. However, at the time of the accident there were no means of detecting such weather phenomena. Further factors included: