Date:	Saturday 22 August 1981
Time:	10:00
Type:	Boeing 737-222
Owner/operator:	Far Eastern Air Transport - FEAT
Registration:	B-2603
MSN:	19939/151
Year of manufacture:	1969
Cycles:	33313 flights
Engine model:	Pratt & Whitney JT8D-7A
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 110 / Occupants: 110
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed, written off
Category:	Accident
Location:	near Sanyi Township, Miaoli County -   Taiwan
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Passenger - Scheduled
Departure airport:	Taipei-Songshan Airport (TSA/RCSS)
Destination airport:	Kaohsiung International Airport (KHH/RCKH)

Narrative:
Far Eastern Air Transport flight 103, a Boeing 737-200, crashed near Sanyi Township, Taiwan, killing all 110 on board.
Seventeen days before the accident, on August 5, 1981 the aircraft lost cabin pressure during a flight from Taipei (TSA) to Kaohsiung (KHH) in Taiwan.
On August 22, 1981, the aircraft took off from Taipei on a flight to Makung (MZG). Ten minutes after takeoff from there was a loss of cabin pressure. The flight crew returned to Taipei, where repair work was carried out. Later that day the aircraft entered service again as Flight 103 to Kaohsiung. Fourteen minutes after takeoff the aircraft suffered an explosive decompression and disintegrated in flight.

PROBABLE CAUSE: "Extensive corrosion damage in the lower fuselage structures, and at a number of locations there were corrosion penetrated through pits, holes and cracks due to intergranular corrosion and skin thinning exfoliation corrosion, and in addition, the possible existence of undetected cracks because of the great number of pressurization cycles of the aircraft (a total of 33,313 landings), interaction of these defects and the damage had so deteriorated that rapid fracture occurred at a certain flight altitude and pressure differential resulting rapid decompression and sudden break of passenger compartment floor beams and connecting frames, cutting control cables and electrical wiring. And eventually loss of power, loss of control, midair disintegration."

NTSB/AAR-89/03
Flight International 05 September 1981 (703)

photo (c) via Werner Fischdick; Taipei-Sung Shan Airport (TSA); November 1979

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