May 26, 2002	Sunday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 13,1423

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PENGU (TAIWAN), May 25: A Taiwanese 747-200 plane carrying 225 passengers and crew crashed into the sea shortly after takeoff on Saturday en route from Taiwan to Hong Kong.

Military search and rescue teams picked up the body of a man off the Taiwan-held Penghu islands, also known as the Pescadores, and spotted a cabin door, life vests and an oil slick.

Cable television station ETTV said large numbers of bodies were floating in the sea.

An official with China Airlines, as Taiwan’s main carrier calls itself, said the plane did not issue a mayday call before it disappeared from radar screens about 20 minutes after takeoff.

There was no official word on what might have caused the crash, and Vice Transport Minister Chang Chia-juk said there was no evidence of a midair blast. “We did not find an explosion in the air,” Chang told reporters.

However, cable network TVBS reported that a group of farmers in western Taiwan found debris with China Airlines’ logo in their fields on Saturday.

TVBS showed footage of farmers in the coastal county of Changhua — about 75kms from the crash site — holding up scraps of foam padding and inflight magazines.—Reuters