I used to fly this airline regularly when I lived in Taiwan. It's the national carrier, and it's had four fatal crashes in the past 13 years. I know one of their pilots, and I'll pass on his advice: "Never fly China Airlines unless you absolutely must."
The cause of the fire was a loose landing-assembly bolt that punctured the fuel tank. It was a brand-new Boeing 737 and had just arrived in Okinawa after a 90-minute flight from Taipei. All 157 passengers and eight crew escaped alive.
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I just came back from Taiwan where I was visiting my cousin who teaches English in Taichung. We flew EVA to Vancouver.
I was there when the commuter flight crashed in Phuket, Thailand and everyone emailed to see if I was okay. People don't really think of Taiwan as a place to go but I loved it.
Did you enjoy your time there?
Definitely. It doesn't have the vacation appeal of its neighbors, but it's a fine place. I keep rehearsing in my mind the first three or four things I'll do when I go back--right now it's river-swimming at Wu Lai, dinner at Ding Tai Fung, and then a half-drunken scooter ride to the soybean-milk place on Fu Xing Road.
I love those places that are basically a counter where the cooks fry up pork or whatnot in front of you and you just go to town with a bowl of rice and a Taiwan Beer. I'm not sure if we have those here but I'm going to head down to Chinatown (in Montreal) soon to check. Even if I do find something similar I'm sure it'll be 10 times the price. Oh well.
Half-drunken scooter rides are manditory and encouraged -- especially without travel insurance.
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