China Northwest Airlines Flight 2303

China Northwest Airlines Flight 2303
	B-2610, the aircraft involved, in CAAC livery in 1988
Accident summary
Date	June 6, 1994
Summary	Mechanical failure due to improper maintenance
Site	Near Xi'an, P.R. China; Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
Passengers	146
Crew	14
Fatalities	160 (all)
Survivors	0
Aircraft type	Tupolev Tu-154M
Operator	China Northwest Airlines
Registration	B-2610
Flight origin	Xianyang Airport (XIY/ZLXY), China
Destination	Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport (former) (CAN/ZGGG), China

China Northwest Airlines Flight 2303 was a domestic flight from Xi'an to Guangzhou, People's Republic of China.^[1] On June 6, 1994, this aircraft, a Tupolev Tu-154M, broke up in-flight and crashed as a result of an autopilot malfunction which caused violent shaking and overstressed the airframe.^[2] Faulty maintenance was believed to be the cause.

Accident

Approximately eight minutes after takeoff (ten minutes in some reports), the control tower at Xianyang Airport lost contact with the plane and it crashed in a field 18 miles (29 km) southeast of the airport.^[3]^[4] All 146 passengers and 14 crew died. As of 2016, it remains the deadliest airplane crash ever to occur in mainland China.^[5]

Investigation

Flawed maintenance of the aircraft was the probable cause of the sequence of events. The previous evening, the autopilot yaw-channel had been erroneously connected to the bank control, and the bank-channel to the yaw controls.^[5] Additionally, this incorrect maintenance was not done in a properly approved facility.^{[citation needed]}

Passengers

Among the passengers, 133 were from mainland China, four were from Italy, three were from Hong Kong, two from the United States, one from Taiwan, two from Indonesia, one from Singapore, one from Malaysia, three from France, one from Canada, three from South Korea, one from Vietnam, and five were from Russia.

Nationality	Passengers	Crew	Total
China	119	14	133
Italy	4	0	4
Hong Kong	3	0	3
United States	2	0	2
Taiwan	1	0	1
Indonesia	2	0	2
Singapore	1	0	1
Malaysia	1	0	1
France	3	0	3
Canada	1	0	1
South Korea	3	0	3
Vietnam	1	0	1
Russia	5	0	5
Total	146	14	160