China Airlines Repaints Its Toasted 737, Translates "Chutzpah" into Chinese

As every self-respecting New Yorker knows, "chutzpah" is a Yiddish word which mean to have great audacity or unmitigated gall. It describes an especially brazen kind of shamelessness, which is why the classic example of chutzpah is the guy who, while on trial for killing his parents, pleads for mercy because he's now an orphan.

Given this acute level of cultural nuance, it should come as no surprise that there's no perfect translation for "chutzpah" in Chinese. But  the expression 大胆 -- da  dŽan, or "great courage" -- comes pretty close.  "Great courage" is the literal translation, but the connotations of 大胆ƒ† are such that could also be understood to mean "big balls."  And 大胆ƒ† is exactly what Taiwan's China Airlines demonstrated earlier this week when the carrier rushed to cover over the words "China Airlines" from the fuselage of its 737 after the aircraft caught fire in Okinawa, Japan.

The accident took place on Monday. On Tuesday, witnesses saw a service crew splashing white paint over the name "China Airlines" and the plum flower logo on the aircraft's tail. (On the image to the right, the Japanese text says "yesterday" on the top and "today" on the bottom.)

No one was killed in the accident, so the Japanese press can have a guilt-free field day with the incident. Here's how Mainichi Daily News tells the story:

China Airlines has painted over its name and logo on the wreckage of a passenger jet that exploded in flames at Naha Airport in Okinawa moments after passengers slid down emergency chutes to escape.

The airline painted over the name "China Airlines" on the left-hand side of the aircraft and the company's logo on the plane's tail fin.

After the accident, photographs and video footage of the jet continued to appear in news reports, and the company apparently painted over the name and logo to limit further damage to its image.

Before painting over the name and logo, the airline sought permission from the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry's Aircraft and Railway Accidents Investigation Commission. Officials granted the request, judging that it would not hinder the investigation into the accident, and the airline painted over the markings following inspections carried out on Tuesday.

When questioned over the move, an official from the Taiwan-based airline said, "We followed international procedures. We do not have detailed information."

That right there? That's 大胆ƒ† in action!

This BBC video offers footage of passengers escaping from the burning plane moments before it exploded, as well as some sobering facts about China Airlines's safety record. As the narrator explains, China Airlines has had "four fatal accidents in the last 13 years, with some 675 people dead."

Investigators now suspect that fuel line maintenance errors may be the cause of Monday's blaze.

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Comments

[Mike Harney]

Painting over logos and airline names is actually common practice when an accident occurs at an airport. The only thing that's surprising to me is that nobody seems to remember the previous occurrences and another tiny uproar occurs every time somebody notices the, uh, little bit of touchup. Again. And again a few years later, when the next high-profile airport accident occurs.

My first recollection of such a paint-over is the World Airways/Logan Airport accident in 1982. The aircraft was sitting partially submerged in water at first, then the logos were covered up with large tarps, then they were painted over, then the whole shebang was moved away from the airport to a Boston harbor island, well away from the airport.

In cases in the US where this has occurred (pretty much every accident at an airport is my guess), I'll bet you would find that each whitewash -- let's call it what it is -- was done with the approval of both the NTSB and the FAA, one of whose raisons d'etre is to promote airline use, after all. The paint crew would not go unnoticed by the investigators clambering over the wreckage.

Now, the story link below from just a few months ago depicts an airline with truly Gulliver-sized cojones. Note the Garuda Airline employees posing for souvenir snapshots in front of their wrecked airliner where 21 people died. Incidentally, the logos on that aircraft were also painted over, but, according to the Garuda spokesman, for "cultural reasons." Yeah, that's it. You wouldn't want to offend the locals by ignoring their tradition of disassociating corporate entities from disasters.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21355327-5001021,00.html

[Telstar Logistics]

Wow. I had no idea this was so common. Thank you Mike!

[Christopher Davis]

It's both common and long-standing. See this Snopes forum thread, with links to photos from the Air Florida crash in 1982.

In that case, when the tail was pulled out of the Potomac, it of course still had the logo visible; later photos of the debris stored in a hangar, however, show a big blob of black paint covering the logo.

[Justin]

Mike,

I would like to see evidence that this happens after US airline incidents. Putting a tarp over it doesn't seem as bad. People have no need to see my charred remains or final resting place just for their own gratification. But repainting is something all together different. Of all the goggling I've done I can only find cases of international incidents where this has happened. Do you have any others?

-JT

[Rusty]

I believe this practice is due to the fact that after severe damage, the 'plane is no longer an asset of the airline but of their insurer. Not your plane, not your paint job.

[Christopher Davis]

Justin: See the links off of the Snopes forum thread, including a photo of the very much repainted Air Florida 90 tail.

[Complexify]

Sadly, this isn't the first time China Airlines has had to paint over its logo post-crash. On November 4, 1993, China Airlines Flight 605, a three-month-old B747-400, overran the runway at Hong Kong's old Kai Tak airport. The plane was stuck in the water for days. By November 13, they'd removed not only the name and logo but the entire tail too. (The tail was blasted off with dynamite so as not to pose a hazard to departing aircraft.)

Luckily, all 396 people aboard escaped with their lives.

See photo of the plane stuck in the water http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0193315/M/

And a post-extraction:
http://www.airdisaster.com/photos/ci605/2.shtml

[Scott Weisbrod]

What an insane video. The cover-up is laughable though.

[Bruno]

No doubt they used all the extra lead paint they picked up from the Barbie factory.

[chef]

@Bruno: Despite the name, you got the wrong country. Doesn't change the institutionalized retardedness of the situation though.

[chris]

common practice and nothing special at all. CAL have restructured and become a very nice airline flying a young fleet these days.. having flown with them several times i can say they are a very good airline, on par with Thai Airways and the likes...

A tarnished history yes but nothing compared to Korean Airlines.... have a look at their crash-record at www.airdisaster.net

[Telstar Logistics]

Yes, Bruno... China Airlines is from Taiwan, not mainland China.

[halle]

as a relative in the travel business says about China Airlines: "How are they? Well, their cheap fares reflect all that money they save on maintenance."

[Vidiot]

Thank you for flying Mandarin Airlines, and we'd like ask those on the right side of the aircraft to close their windowshades for takeoff.

[nba live]

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