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Fatal Events Since 1988 for Air China

The following events are those involving at least one passenger death where the aircraft flight had a direct or indirect role. Excluded would be events where the only passengers killed were stowaways, hijackers, or saboteurs.

1. 15 April 2002; Air China 767-300ER; near Pusan, South Korea: The aircraft was on a scheduled international flight from Beijing, China to Pusan, South Korea. The crew was attempting a second approach under conditions of reduced visibility, and crashed into a mountain about 2.5 nm (4.6 km) from the runway. Eight of the 11 crew members and 121 of the 155 passengers were killed.
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2. 15 March 2003; Air China 737-300; en route Hong Kong to Beijing: In the 18 December 2003 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, the authors of a study concluded that five people who died from SARS most likely contracted the disease after exposure to an infected passenger during a three-hour flight from Hong Kong to Beijing. The 72-year-old male passenger who had SARS symptoms when he boarded the flight in Hong Kong was hospitalized after arrival in Beijing and died five days later.
   
   Investigations in Singapore, Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan revealed that a total of 20 passengers and two flight attendant contracted SARS due to their exposure on that flight. The 20 passengers and one flight attendant were in the economy section of the aircraft and the other fight attendant was in the first class section. There was a total of 112 passengers and eight crew members on the flight.
   
   One of those 20 infected passengers, one of the five from that flight that eventually died, infected a passenger on a Bangkok to Beijing flight on 23 March 2003 and caused two passengers on that flight to become infected. One of the two infected passengers on the Thai Air flight also died.
   
   Sources:
   1. Olsen, S.J., Chang, H., Cheung, T.Y., et al, "Transmission of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome on Aircraft," New England Journal of Medicine, 349(25):2416-2422, 18 December 2003.
   2. Lakshmanan, I.A.R, "Air China Flight 112: Tracking the Genesis of a Plague," Boston Globe, 18 May 2003, sec. 1A, p. 1.
   
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